Long-term spending – Cemeteries & crematorium
This post looks at Hamilton’s long-term budgeted spending on Cemeteries and the crematorium from the early 2000s to 2028.
A bit of history first: ‘Council’s cemeteries and crematorium provide burial and cremation facilities and appropriate environments for memorialisation. Hamilton Park Cemetery has served the community since 1957, with the crematorium and chapel facilities operating since 1963. The cemetery currently operates on fourteen hectares with a further eighteen hectares available for future development. Council is also responsible for Hamilton West Cemetery, which opened in 1869 and was closed in 1975, and Hamilton East Cemetery, which opened in 1866.’ from 2009/19 LTP Vol 1 page 136. For more detail here is a link to the ‘Hamilton Cemeteries Plan 2015’ (HCP 2015)
The plan shows that the cemeteries and crematorium get almost no rate payer funding; instead it comes from charges, as shown in Table 2 above, taken from the 2012/22 LTP Vol 2, page 62. You can see income in the 2018-28 LTP on page 94. For a bit of background on the number of persons/bodies using the cemeteries, see this informative article from the Waikato Times: ‘Rising cremation demand may force 10-hour days at Hamilton crematorium’ by Libby Wilson 12:01, Oct 06 2017
One would think that since everyone dies, there is a predictable pattern to long term demand.
‘According to Statistics New Zealand, annual deaths within the Hamilton Park Cemetery catchment are projected to increase from 2,644 in 2015 to 4,184 in 2045.’ (HCP 2015, page5)
The spike at the start of the 2018-28 plan includes a previously unbudgeted accessible toilet block at Hamilton cemetery being currently built as part of the crematorium building upgrade. The spike at the end of the 2018-28 plan is for future land acquisition. Only the 2015-25 and 2018-28 plans allowed for increasing costs; all earlier plans budgeted for reduced spending, which seems a bit odd for a growing city.