It’s about to become more expensive to die in Moose Jaw — well, to bury a loved one anyway — as city hall plans to increase fees at both cemeteries in 2021.
Most burials happening today are cremation and the cost to open and close those are considerably less than for a full casket burial, a city council report explained. As cremation burials become the more popular option, the parks and recreation department receives less revenue to operate the Rosedale Cemetery, which means it is necessary to increase the fees for completing cremation interments next year.
The main changes to the cemetery rates for next year include a five-per-cent increase to adult and veteran traditional grave licences, burial vault handling fees, all cremation fees, outdoor columbarium niche open and closing and disinterment fees, columbarium memorialization fees, and scattering fees.
There will also be a $5 increase to all after-hour surcharges and rounding increases to the miscellaneous rates.
The categories that won’t see a rate increase include traditional burial opening and closing fees, child grave licences, outdoor columbarium niches, columbarium vases, scattering memorialization plaques, and mortuary vault storage fees.
The 2021 cemetery rate recommendations were based on a review of several factors, the council report explained. This included a review and assessment of burial trends (full casket burials vs. cremation burials), cemetery rates comparison with similarly-sized communities and historical cemetery cost-recovery rates.
Council voted unanimously to adopt the new rates.
Burial costs
A comparison of some burial costs for 2020 versus 2021 shows:
- Adult traditional grave licence: $1,590 / $1,670
- Veteran traditional grave licence: $714 / $750
- Single cremation section grave licence for one urn: $911 / $957
Burial trends
The report provided data on full casket burials and total cremations for the past five years.
The data for total full burials shows:
- 2016: 53 burials
- 2017: 53 burials
- 2018: 37 burials
- 2019: 40 burials
- 2020 (YTD): 36 burials
- Five-year average: 44 burials
The data for total cremations shows:
- 2016: 137 burials
- 2017: 120 burials
- 2018: 148 burials
- 2019: 83 burials
- 2020 (YTD): 78 burials
- Five-year average: 112 burials
Cemetery rate adjustments
The council report provided a historical look at the cemetery rate adjustments during the past decade. The data showed that from 2010 to 2014, the parks department increased all fees by 10 per cent.
Besides the 10-per-cent increase in all fees, the department also added an extra 10 per cent for cremation burial openings and closings in 2015 and 2016.
There was no fee increase in 2017 or 2018, although an after-hours surcharge was added in 2018. In 2019 there was a two-per-cent increase in all fees, plus an extra eight-per-cent increase for cremation burial openings and closings.
In 2020, there was an increase of 10 per cent to traditional grave licences and openings and closings to cremation burials. Furthermore, there was a five-per-cent increase in non-adult graves and columbarium niche openings and closings.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Oct. 19.
