CHESHIRE, Mass. — The Cemetery Commission may lower its new weekend $500 burial fee and find a compromise price by request of the Selectmen, who felt it too steep.

 

"From $100 to $500 seems extraordinary, and I know what the purpose is but I don't know how you can justify it," Selectwoman Carol Francesconi said Tuesday to the commissioners.

 

She was contacted by an upset resident last week who was charged $500 for a weekend burial. A weekday burial is $100 and Francesconi felt an extra $400 for a weekend burial was overkill. 

 

Cemetery Commissioner Josephine Lewis said the weekend fee had been $200 but in 2012 the commission decided to bump it up to $400. She said there had never been a complaint.

 

Francesconi said people probably do not notice the charge because it goes through the funeral home and asked why the increase was so large in 2012.

 

Lewis said they wanted to make sure that overtime town crews working a weekend was covered.

 

"We bumped it up because we felt it was necessary especially for full burial when we have four town guys and some of our guys,"she said.

 

Highway Superintendent Blair Crane said it normally takes two hours per man to dig the hole and two hours per man to fill in the hole on the burial day.

 

Lewis said she was hesitant to change it because it has been $500 for five years and it would not be fair to those who already paid it. 

 

Francesconi felt $200 would more than fund the overtime needed.

 

Lewis said if Crane were to provide all the costs attributed to burials, the commission would rethink the fees.

 

The Selectmen still were not sure if they set the cemetery rates or it was purely on the commission.

 

Town Administrator Mark Webber said it was "touchy"and that the authority varies from town to town.

 

In other business, Webber said he has been negotiating a new lease agreement with the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District which wants to continue to use Cheshire Elementary School as its central office.

 

Webber said the district's attorney is currently writing up an agreement.

 

The town will be paid a market rate for the square footage used by the school district and the central office will go beyond the minimal threshold of occupancy, which will save the town money on insurance.

 

"I think it is little bit of a benefit that they will be maintaining the grounds and occupying the building all summer," Webber said. "That will give us some breathing room to figure out these other things about the switching over of the utilities and so forth."

 

Although absent from the meeting, Chairman Robert Ciskowski voted at a past meeting against allowing the district to continue to use the building.

 

Webber added that an Adams dance school has approached the town and asked if it could lease the building. He said he told the school that the selectmen are not prepared to lease the building while the fate of the school is still in flux.  

 

The Selectmen permitted Crane's request to use Chapter 90 funds to utilize the StreetScan program to digitize the town's roads, street lights, culverts and signs.

 

"There are about five to six towns in the county right now that are using it and it will allow us to project out how long our roads are going to last based on the money we have to spend," Crane said. "It basically allows us to organize all of our infrastructure.”

 

Crane said after all current projects are closed out, the town will have $601,000 left in Chapter 90 funds. The program will cost $27,000 for three years.

 

"I have done a lot of research on this, and it is pretty complex but I think it will be a good tool," he said. "I think we now just see areas and are throwing darts at the board and hope we are hitting the right problem instead of seeing the problems down the road.”