Cemetery board accepts March–May financials contingent on audit; managers outline staffing, grave supply and equipment concerns

The Tulare County Board of Supervisors, sitting as the Tulare Public Cemetery District board, voted to accept the cemetery district’s financial statements for March, April and May on the condition that the figures be confirmed by an audit.

Supervisor McCarrie moved to approve the financials “contingent upon the audit,” and Supervisor Townsend seconded the motion. The board recorded the motion as passing 4–0, with Supervisor Shuckling not voting because she was not in attendance.

District Manager Clara Bernardo told the board the packet included March–May financial statements but not June because county reports were still outstanding. Bernardo said county transfers caused a temporary posting error that moved funds into an “endowment unreserved” category; county staff later corrected the posting. She identified a $200,000 transfer tied to a prior board resolution (referenced in public comments as Resolution 23 24-7) that moved funds from account 886 into account 772 with the intent to purchase certificates of deposit; the transfer remains unresolved and “needs to be resolved,” Bernardo said.

Bernardo reported operations and program details: the district completed 302 interment services in the reported fiscal year, and the most recent count stood at 294 interment services through June. She said the district currently has about 3,200 graves available at North Cemetery and that sales run roughly 165–200 graves per year, which she estimated would exhaust current inventory in about 15 years without expansion planning.

Staffing and equipment were recurring operational concerns. Bernardo said the cemetery is budgeted for eight grounds positions but currently has seven filled; the district is using temporary workers while recruiting the eighth position. She said the department pays about $113,000 for temp services and that staff have relied on maintenance contracts to keep older equipment running. The assistant grounds supervisor, James Correll, said the work is labor intensive and that some tasks (weed eating, grave digging, irrigation repairs) are effectively two-person jobs. Correll described challenges hiring mechanically skilled workers and noted that sprayers and heavier gas-powered equipment remain necessary for current workloads.

Budget pressures Bernardo highlighted included an insurance cost increase from roughly $34,000 to about $102,000 and legal expenses that exceeded initial expectations. Bernardo said some graves previously purchased under “pre-need” contracts have been completed and must be transferred into operating accounts; she said the board will need resolutions to move completed-contract funds from the preneed account back into operating funds.

Members of the public raised additional questions about accounting accuracy and recordkeeping. Public commenter Alberto Aguilar asserted numerical discrepancies in the reconciliation and balance-sheet entries and calculated a difference he characterized as $138,814.10; Aguilar urged trustees to review the numbers closely. Xavier Abala and others urged transparency, noting prior journal entries and transfers that were not fully explained to incoming trustees.

Votes at a glance: Items 2–4 (consent calendar) — approved in one motion; vote recorded as 4–0 with Supervisor Shuckling absent. Item 6 (financials for March–May) — approved contingent on audit; motion by Supervisor McCarrie, second by Supervisor Townsend; vote recorded as 4–0 with Supervisor Shuckling absent.

Ending: The board approved acceptance of the reports subject to audit verification and instructed staff that outstanding accounting items — notably the $200,000 transfer and transfers of completed pre-need contracts — require follow-up and, where necessary, formal resolutions to correct account classifications.