As of: March 8, 2024, 2:47 p.m
By: Rasso Schorer
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Many things are becoming more expensive - including dying in Schongau.
Cemetery fees are increasing significantly in some cases.
© Photo: Schorer
Schongau made a loss of almost 213,000 euros with its cemeteries in 2023.
Now the fee increases from April are sometimes steep.
Schongau - The city made a loss of almost 213,000 euros with its cemeteries in 2023 - even though the calculation should actually cover costs.
In order to increase the coverage ratio from at least 62 to 70 percent, the regular fee increases from April will be steep in some cases.
The fact that burial preferences and therefore cemeteries as such will change in the future also had an impact on the calculation.
Higher cemetery fees in Schongau from April: Significant increase in costs for gravesites
According to the standard model, an area-based calculation, it would be like this: large price for large graves, small price for small graves.
But this lags behind – because the effort involved is not shown.
This is what Daniel Felsmann, head of the registry office and cemetery administration, explained to the city council on Tuesday last week.
The “Cologne model”, however, takes into account more variables, such as the number of visitors, parking spaces, paths, sanitary facilities and so on.
The city had already decided on an expansion in 2022, namely the pond calculation model based on it, which also takes into account the maintenance costs for the operator.
For the operator, i.e. the city, grave types such as a lawn grave are usually more maintenance-intensive than a conventional grave, for which the authorized users take over the care.
“Urn steles and tree burials are expensive, there’s a lot of effort involved for us,” explained Felsmann.
Above all, the effort required to maintain the city cemetery is considerable.
In addition, there is the need to provide infrastructure such as the funeral hall.
In addition, a lot is being invested in implementing “trends”.
In Schongau there are now 26 percent coffin burials and 74 percent urn burials.
This change creates overhang areas - this also increases the costs for the city significantly, says Felsmann.
Overview of the fees (in euros): This is how high they should actually be (left column), this is how high they are currently (middle) and this is how high they will be in the future (right).
© City/Kreisbote
The new calculation clearly recommends creating incentives for large-scale coffin graves that require no operator maintenance.
At the same time, says Felsmann, children's graves should be much cheaper so as not to create further burdens in an already difficult time.
The observation that anonymous urn burials are often used because the fees are so low should be counteracted.
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Higher cemetery fees in Schongau: “We’ll make it cheaper anyway”
“I find price increases of sometimes 1,200 percent very, very steep,” summarized city councilor Stefan Konrad (SPD).
However, Bettina Schade, manager at the town hall, advised against picking out individual items from the “comprehensive overall calculation” and discussing them in detail.
“The approach is correct,” said Ilona Böse (SPD).
There was agreement in the city council that the more expensive fees would be met with little approval.
Nevertheless, the new statute was approved with two votes against.
“We’re already doing it cheaper than we need to do it,” explained Mayor Falk Sluyterman.
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