Riverside Cemetary Still In The Red

Defiance’s River­side Ceme­tery has been in the news a lot over the past cou­ple of months.

The ceme­tery was once again a major topic of dis­cus­sion on Tues­day night at the Defi­ance City Coun­cil meet­ing.

The Cres­cent News reports that dur­ing a July meet­ing, it was learned that River­side Ceme­tery could be full within 10 years.

The ceme­tery bud­get this year is $217,915 while rev­enue ear­lier this year was pro­jected at only $70,000. The dif­fer­ence between ceme­tery rev­enue and the bud­get is made up by the city’s gen­eral fund which relies heav­ily on income tax receipts.

Some recent ceme­tery rate increases approved by coun­cil in June, will increase annual ceme­tery rev­enue by $30,000. But that is obvi­ously not enough to close the gap.

Rates increases have been pro­posed, some of them quite steep, espe­cially for out of town res­i­dents.

Now, a ref­er­en­dum is being planned for the Novem­ber bal­lot in which the vot­ers will have a say in the matter.