Should Cemetery Trustees Pay for Cemetery Maintenance?

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that selectmen are questions whether or not trustees should pay for Cemetery Fields' maintenance. This was an error, the selectmen are just looking at the maintenance of cemetery space.

The Amherst Board of Selectmen are questioning why taxpayers are paying the maintenance costs for cemeteries, and not the cemetery trustees.

Selectman Brad Galinson said at their Tuesday meeting that citizens are paying $40-45,000 a year to maintain these properties. This has been done to comply with an RSA that requires towns to have sufficient funding to care for cemetery space that are not funded by alternative sources.

Galinson said that he believes the town has misinterpreted this RSA. This money used to come from the trustee’s Perpetual Care trust fund, but at some point the burden was shifted to taxpayers. The trust fund has enough revenue to pay for these costs.

Cemetery Trustees are currently looking to use excess money from that fund towards the first construction phase for cemeteries on the property. This will begin in September 2014 after Cemetery Fields ceases its recreational use.

Selectmen voted to see where trustees are in the process of getting money from Perpetual Care trust fund before they seek a legal opinion on the RSA in question. They also authorized $2,000 for separate legal counsel on the matter.

Galinson said that the board must act as “responsible stewards to the taxpayers” by exploring this issue.

Selectmen have also drafted a letter in response to the trustee’s request for an audit of fees paid for the use of Cemetery Fields since 1998. The trustees believe they are owed these fees, which are collected from private groups and teams for non-residents participating in the fields’ use.

The Amherst Recreation Commission has only been collecting these fees since Fall 2006, and Galinson estimates that the amount is only $4,000 a year. He said that this, combined with the three-year statute of limitations, means that trustees are only seeking about $12,000.