While dying does not discriminate, it seems the price of where you get buried can vary greatly.
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In the Goulburn Valley, a right of interment at the lawn cemetery section can vary by almost $3000, depending on where you are buried.
The right of interment is only the actual site of the grave, and does not include burial costs, headstones or other adornments in most cases.
The News compared the right of interment in the lawn section only at five different cemeteries in the Goulburn Valley: Shepparton, Pine Lodge, Mooroopna, Tatura and Kyabram.
The most expensive plot of land in the lawn section can be found at Shepparton Public Cemetery, which costs $3895.
There is a stark difference to the cheapest, with lawn plots at Kyabram Cemetery costing only $945 for the right of interment.
Pine Lodge was the second most expensive of the five The News looked at, with the right of interment there varying between $2870 for existing older sections and $3600 for the newest sections being developed over the next year.
Mooroopna Cemetery was third, at a cost of $1410, while Tatura Cemetery was the second cheapest at $1200.
Kittle Bros Funerals director Rick Hall said the costs at some cemeteries meant some people were changing which town they would be buried in.
“They’re going on about the cost of living, but the cost of dying is getting too much,” he said.
Shepparton Public Cemetery Trust chairperson Rick Brun said costs to run the cemetery included administration, workers and costs for water.
He said the Shepparton cemetery employed five staff — three who worked as gardeners and two in the office.
He said Kyabram and Mooroopna cemeteries did not employ staff at these levels, with work there done on a more voluntary basis.
“That’s the difference in these overheads,” Mr Brun said.
“We’re running a beautiful cemetery at Shepparton — a huge area of 20 acres (eight hectares).
“The costs of running it are enormous. I don’t think people understand that.”
He also said the lawn graves at Shepparton had a large piece of granite that was used as a headstone and came as part of the right of interment costs.
At Pine Lodge, Remembrance Parks Central Victoria — the organisation responsible for the cemetery — announced the $730 price rise for graves in the new part of the cemetery on July 1.
This followed a price rise in December last year when the right of interment fee for an adult lawn grave increased by $345.
Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive Lauretta Stace said in December last year that the “cost-of-living crisis had put significant pressure” on many of RPCV’s fixed costs such as fuel, gas, construction, labour, land value, equipment, depreciation and telecommunications.
“All these costs have increased well beyond CPI over the past five years,” she said.
When the announcement was made in July to charge more in the new section of the cemetery, Mrs Stace again defended the decision, saying it was “not a price rise”, rather a price for newly developed products.
She said the existing prices at the cemetery were “historically low” for rights of interment, and that CPI increases and the increase in December last year for existing sections of the cemetery were not enough to keep up with rising costs.
At Tatura, cemetery trust secretary Judy Forster said the trust, which runs the cemetery, only put up its fees by CPI every year.
“If you do it gradually, you keep up with inflation,” she said.
Mrs Forster said the cemetery had spent the past couple of years trying to get new land converted to crown land so it could also be used by the cemetery for graves.
Land for cemeteries must be crown land, and Mrs Forster said when it was changed to crown land, the cemetery may have to look at its fees to recoup money for costs for features such as new paths, roads and edging.
She said that could affect right of interment costs in a few years’ time.
Mrs Forster said the Tatura Cemetery Trust was mainly run by volunteers, with only groundskeepers and a grave digger paid.
She said the cemetery saw about 40 burials a year on average.
Mooroopna Cemetery Trust is also run by a band of volunteers, with paid employees doing maintenance and lawn mowing for about 35 hours.
Mooroopna’s right of interment was mid-range in price of the five cemeteries looked at, but was cheaper than both Shepparton and Pine Lodge by more than $2000.
Mooroopna Cemetery Trust secretary Jim Hepworth said pricing was discussed often by the trustees.
He said prices in Mooroopna had not been reviewed for quite a few years, other than CPI increases, and the trust members were conscious they were “lagging a bit”.
“We are probably not reflecting the value of the land,” Mr Hepworth said.
He said a change of pricing was “probably on the agenda in the next six months or so”, and it was likely the trust would set a target for prices to be increased in increments over two or three years.
Mr Hepworth estimated that Mooroopna would average “in the high 40s” for the number of burials it had each year.
He said prices were able to be kept down because Mooroopna did not need to purchase new land for burials.
“Our land is filling, but we probably have 70 or 80 years of burial space (left),” Mr Hepworth said.
He said he could see why some other cemeteries in the region, such as Pine Lodge, had increased prices, because they had purchased more land in recent years.