The Cost Of Dying In Defiance Just Went Up

The cost of dying may soon increase in Defi­ance. City council’s build­ings and lands com­mit­tee is dis­cussing increases in bur­ial and grave fees for River­side Ceme­tery in Defi­ance, after going over the num­bers and com­ing up with the con­clu­sion that a lot of money is spent on the ceme­tery, while cur­rent rates don’t even come close to cov­er­ing the costs.

On top of that, Defi­ance offi­cials say that soon, the ceme­tery will be out of room.

In the mean­time, accord­ing to the Cres­cent News, the city has plans to trans­form the Tecum­seh ball­field into addi­tional bur­ial lots, but even then, the ceme­tery may only have space for another 7 to 10 years of buri­als before it’s filled.

Under the fee increase pro­posal, rates for city res­i­dents would mostly all dou­ble. Rates for non-city res­i­dents would increase more than that.

The ceme­tery bud­get this year is just a few dol­lars shy of $218,000.