Dougherty leaders consider indigent burial fee increase

ALBANY — Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler came before the Dougherty County Commission on Monday to recommend a revision to the county’s indigent burial and burial assistance policy.

The proposed revision involves increasing the fee going to the funeral homes taking on the indigent burials. The commission is expected to act on the recommendation at a later meeting.

Whenever any person dies in Dougherty County and the decedent’s family and immediate relatives are indigent and unable to provide for a decent interment, Dougherty County, through the (Georgia) Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), will provide indigent burial assistance in the amount of $250. Section 36-12-5 of the Georgia Code applies to the legal authority and obligation on the part of the County in bearing interment expenses of the indigent, the current indigent burial policy in Dougherty County states.

The state has a system in place dictating that if the family or immediate kin are unable to provide for a decent interment, as determined by DFCS, the decedent is considered a pauper. Fowler said that, as it stands, four of Dougherty’s eight funeral homes are willing to take on pauper burials at the current fee. But he said that those funeral homes are dissatisfied with the amount they are receiving in regards to the costs they take on to provide the service, which in most cases is $2,915.

He added that the $250 allotment has been in affect since at least 1963, and with the costs of funeral services rising, that amount no longer buys what it used to. The funeral homes are in fact so dissatisfied that they have threatened to discontinue the service, leaving virtually nobody to handle the remains of the indigent deceased.

“If the funeral homes don’t take it, (the remains) will decompose in the morgue,” Fowler said.

The coroner’s presentation led to a proposal to either increase the fee to $1,000 or consider allowing remains to be cremated at a cost of $500 with a mass burial at the end of the year, while still giving families the option of claiming the cremains.

“I think we need to increase these fees,” District 1 Commissioner Lamar Hudgins said. “I feel like we need to do something, and I feel like we have the money somewhere.”

Interim County Administrator Michael McCoy said the recommendation of the county’s staff is to go with the cremation option. The commission ultimately put forth a proposal to consider a $1,000 flat fee and allow the decision of whether to bury or cremate up to the families, or if the family is not involved, the county.

District 4 Commissioner Russell Gray asked about the number of cases in which a family cannot pay compared to those in which the family decides to abandon the deceased.

“I’d say it is about 60/40,” Fowler said.

Fowler said there were 13 indigent burials in the county last year and 10 to date this year.

The commission also heard:

— A recommendation to purchase one D6T XW–high track landfill package Caterpillar bulldozer for the county’s solid waste department from the state contract vendor Yancey Bros. in Albany in the amount of $478,772;

— A recommendation to accept the proposal for debris monitoring services and financial recovery services from Tetra Tech, with the initially proposed annual cap of $1 million removed;

— A recommendation to approve the county’s proposed alcoholic beverage license renewals for the 2019 calendar year;

— An annual update from the Georgia Forestry Commission.