Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Cemetery Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Cemetery officials describe constrained land, revenue split with city and encroachment concerns
Summary
Belleview Cemetery director Carmen Lopez presented a level-funded FY27 request driven by nondiscretionary labor costs; board chair Elizabeth Charlton described a historical 60/40 revenue split (cemetery/city), councillors asked about the practice and noted encroachments, squatters and a relocated police memorial that lacked board notification.
Carmen Lopez, director of Belleview Cemetery, presented the cemetery’s FY27 executive summary and asked the Budget & Finance Committee to approve a budget described as effectively level-funded once nondiscretionary labor and maintenance costs are factored in. Lopez said personnel increases are driven by a 3% union CBA adjustment and one position with a larger increase.
Board chair Elizabeth Charlton said the cemetery historically retains 60% of lot-sale revenues and that 40% flows to the city; she and councillors noted that the cemetery uses its retained share to pay for equipment and capital needs but not salaries. Charlton said $319,000 was returned to the general fund in the prior year and that the accounting split is practice-based — councillors asked whether an ordinance or statute formally defines the percentages and were not shown a citation during the hearing.
Councillors pressed the cemetery on available land and noted two encroachments, including unauthorized structures (a deck) placed on parcels that cemeteries assert are cemetery land. Lopez and Charlton said the cemetery owns roughly 119 acres including sections identified as buildable but that some parcels transferred from the city in recent years require clearing, engineering and soil testing before they can be used; that work would require capital investment.
The board also raised an unrelated but urgent stakeholder concern: a police memorial and associated markers were removed and relocated without contemporaneous communication to the cemetery board or families. Charlton said the memorial had been granted to the patrolmen’s association in 1997 for memorial use and that the board was not informed when the monument was moved; councillors and the board urged better communication to avoid offending families.
Councillors requested more detailed revenue accounting and documentary support for the 60/40 practice and noted that the cemetery functions partly as a self-sustaining enterprise (revolving fund) but also returns revenue to the general fund by agreement. The committee wrapped the cemetery hearing and will include the item in the FY27 package forwarded to the full council.
