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Staff urges council to clarify cemetery fee schedule; suggests contract passthrough or surcharge rewrite
Summary
City staff told the Kewaunee council that current cemetery billing mixes contractor charges and city surcharges that may overstate city work; staff proposed options including refining the fee schedule or passing contractor fees directly to funeral homes and asked council to refer the item to the finance committee.
City staff (Speaker 3) told the Kewaunee Common Council that the city owns Riverview Cemetery but contracts grave excavation and related work to a private contractor, while the city’s fee schedule still reflects a time when the city performed those tasks. Staff said invoices from the contractor (Wiese / Memorial & Burial Vault of Algoma) and the city’s surcharges differ and that the existing schedule can create confusion and possibly duplicate billings. "The fees we charge are not what are being charged by Wiese," staff said, noting a current $200 surcharge for burial and an extra $25 winter charge that staff said the city does not itself perform.
Staff presented three possible approaches: (1) pass contractor invoicing directly to funeral homes and bill only for city-provided services; (2) revise the fee schedule to reflect the city's actual time and materials; or (3) explicitly itemize contractor fees plus a city surcharge for staff time and materials. Staff recommended keeping the monument/stone-removal fee but reworking how interparty charges are displayed on invoices.
Council members suggested referring the matter to the finance committee for detailed review and to specify which fees are contractor passthroughs and which pay for city administrative or maintenance tasks. Mayor (Speaker 1) asked staff to work with the finance committee and return with a recommendation; no ordinance or fee change was adopted at the meeting.
