SENATE BILL REPORT

SB 5368

BYSenators Tanner, Zimmerman, Wojahn, Garrett, McCaslin and Bender; by request of Office of the Governor;by request of Cemetery Board

Revising and reorganizing laws pertaining to the cemetery board.

Senate Committee on Governmental Operations

Senate Hearing Date(s):February 9, 1987

Majority Report:  That Substitute Senate Bill No. 5368 be substituted therefor, and the substitute bill do pass.

      Signed by Senators Halsan, Chairman; DeJarnatt, McCaslin, Talmadge.

Senate Staff:Barbara Howard (786-7410); Eugene Green (786-7405)

                  February 10, 1987

AS REPORTED BY COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS, FEBRUARY 9, 1987

BACKGROUND:

The Cemetery Board's primary powers have concerned regulation of endowment care funds and prearrangement sales contracts of private cemeteries.  The Board was subject to a review under the Washington Sunset Act in 1980 and again in 1986.  The Legislative Budget Committee (LBC) and the Office of Financial Management (OFM) recommended that the Board be continued with some modifications.  Two major recommendations were that the Board's statutory authority to regulate cemeteries be clarified, and that its enforcement powers be clearly specified and enhanced.  As part of the latter effort, the Cemetery Board undertook to recodify and reorganize the various chapters of law under Title 68 RCW, "Cemeteries, Morgues and Human Remains."

SUMMARY:

The Cemetery Board is continued, as are its powers with respect to policy-making and regulation of private cemeteries. For administrative purposes, the Board is transferred to the Department of Licensing (DOL).  Specific authority is given to the Director, in consultation with the Board, to employ the Executive Secretary, who must have a minimum of five years' experience in cemetery management unless the Board waives that requirement. The Director is also authorized to collect regulatory charges.

In the recodification, the Board's jurisdiction is specifically applied to the chapters of law relating to private cemeteries, cemetery property, mausoleums and columbariums, cemetery plots, abandoned lots, endowment care, endowment care funds, prearrangement contracts and human remains.  Excluded from the Board's jurisdiction are laws relating to public cemeteries and morgues, cemetery districts and penalties.

Specific enforcement powers are delineated for the Board's regulation of the cemetery industry.  Protections for endowment care, endowment care funding, trusts, and prearrangement contracts are strengthened.  The exemption of nonprofit and religious cemeteries from endowment care requirements is removed.

The Cemetery Board and its functions are removed from the sunset termination schedule.

Fiscal Note:      available

Effective Date:The bill declares an emergency and takes effect July 1, 1987.

EFFECT OF PROPOSED SUBSTITUTE:

A nonprofit religious cemetery exempt from property taxes is also exempted from (a) the regulations restricting investment of assets of the organization's endowment care fund and (b) the requirement for establishing a depository for prearrangement trust funds, if the organization reports annually to the Board that the funds have been properly audited by a certified public accountant.

A repealer which would have eliminated the cemetery fund is deleted.

Senate Committee - Testified: Paul Elvig, Executive Secretary, Cemetery Board; Fred Hellberg, Office of the Governor