An unexpectedly high number of indigent or pauper burials this year forced the Kenton County Fiscal Court to adjust its budget.
The original allocation for such burials was $15,000. County Treasurer Roy Cox asked that the amount be doubled. The Judge-Executive and county commissioners approved the move.
The county typically pays $800 for the cremation and burial of unclaimed remains. This year, the county had already gone nearly $2,000 over budget but Cox asked for a full doubling of the amount since there are still several months left in the fiscal year. “We basically expended all the funds we budgeted,” Cox said.
Kenton County Coroner Dr. David Suetholz that there were 37 so-called pauper burials in 2013, one every ten days. The figure specific to the fiscal year so far would be over twenty at $800 each.
“It’s not as if these people are homeless,” Suetholz said. “There are people who die who do have family and the family might say, we can’t help you. And there’s no way you can force someone to pay for somebody’s burial and in essence then, something has to be done. There’s not a place to store a body for an indefinite period of time.”
Don Catchen’s funeral services handles the cremation for the county.
“It’s just poor people who live on the edge and are marginalized and subsequently the individual dies and the family they are associated with has no funds and they haven’t prepared ahead,” Suetholz said.
-Michael Monks, editor & publisher of The River City News
Photo:Â Caskets by Tom Oates, 2013 via Wikipedia
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