Funeral homes are footing the bill for a growing number of local indigent burials, prompting the Cullman County Commission to raise the amount it sends to the businesses to handle interments. 

The county voted Tuesday to raise the amount it gives funerals to handle indigent burials from $850 to $1,500. The amount paid for cremations will remain at $850.

State law requires county commissions pay for the burial of individuals who die in their counties without any assets or any relatives to pay final expenses. The last time Cullman County raised the amount was in 2006 when it went up to $850 from $500, according to county meeting minutes.

Doug Williams, owner of Cullman Heritage Funeral Home, said the costs to handle indigent burials grows anywhere from 2 to 7 percent each year due to rising prices for caskets, fuel to transport bodies and pay for funeral home employees to handle the burials.

“I can only speak for Cullman Heritage, but we’ve been losing money because the gravedigger costs $550 right off the top. That doesn’t leave much for the casket and pay for your employees.”

He added: “No one is going to make money off indigent burials, you’re losing money when it’s all said and done.”

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the median cost of a funeral with viewing and burial was $7,181 in 2014 — the most recent figure available. That’s up 28.6 percent from 2004, according to the NFDA.

The median cost of a funeral with viewing and cremation was $6,078 in 2014; no comparison cost was provided.

Williams, who is the immediate past president of the Alabama Funeral Directors Association, said local funeral homes are also handling more and more burials and cremations for those can’t afford to pay.

“It’s people who have no family left and they have no assets to cover the costs,” he said. “It’s not an every day or even an every week thing. But there does seem to be more locally.”

Indigent individuals who aren’t buried elsewhere are interred at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church Cemetery on U.S. 31 North in Cullman, which donated plots, but they are dwindling, Williams said.

“In the future, the county is going to have to look at another place to bury people,” he said.

More people are turning to cremation in recent years, according to NFDA data.

In 2015, the rate of cremation surpassed that of burial, with 48.5 percent being cremated that year versus 45.4 percent who were buried.

The association projects the rise in cremations and decline of traditional burials will continue, with cremations expected to rise to 51.6 percent in 2017, 56 percent in 2020 and 71.1 percent in 2030 versus burials making up 42.3 percent in 2017, 38 percent in 2020 and 23.2 percent in 2030.