A recent audit says the state could raise money by charging military veterans’ families a $500 fee to be buried together in Georgia’s veterans cemeteries.
In a state with a long history of reverence for veterans, the idea would be a tough sell in the General Assembly, which would likely have to change state law to allow collection of the fees.
The state’s Department of Veterans Services spends about $40 million a year in state, federal and other types of funding. About two-thirds of it goes for nursing home services for veterans.
To serve more veterans, auditors suggested getting more federally-funded or -subsidized health care benefits and getting counties and local service organizations to become more financially involved.
Auditors also noted that some states charge spouses and family members to be buried alongside veterans at state cemeteries.
The Department of Veterans Services opposes the idea. So does House Defense & Veterans Affairs Chairman John Yates, R-Griffin, the Legislature’s last surviving World War II veteran.
“I don’t think we give all that much to veterans that they should charge them for something like that,” Yates said. “I hope that doesn’t go very far.”
Sen. Ed Harbison, D-Columbus, a Vietnam War veteran and vice chairman of the Senate Veterans, Military and Homeland Security, said, “I know we are trying to find money, but I think there are other ways to do it.”
Taxpayers cover the full burial cost for spouses and dependents of veterans at state veterans cemeteries. Auditors found that six of 10 states that they looked at charged interment fees to bury spouses and dependents. Interment fees ranged from $300 to $700 to provide cemetery services for a casket burial.
In fiscal 2015, which ended June 30, about 21 percent of the 414 burials at the state’s veterans cemeteries were of spouses and dependents of veterans.
The report said charging $500 per burial — about the average in states with such fees — would raise an additional $43,500 a year in revenue, a tiny fraction of what the agency spends.
The state’s Department of Veterans Services told auditors that the U.S. Veterans Administration doesn’t charge for burial at national cemeteries, so the state of Georgia’s policy matches the federal government’s.
It added, according to the audit, that “charging a nominal fee may discourage veterans from using this benefit for final resting places. Based on the current mix of veterans to non-veterans interred at the state’s veterans’ cemeteries, the negative message sent to the veterans of Georgia by charging a fee far outweigh the minimal amount of funds to be generated.”
Harbison doesn’t expect a lot of support for the suggestion in the General Assembly.
"Georgia has been very good to veterans, we seek ways every day to be better to them because they deserve it," he said. "We wouldn't want to expose our flank like that. Georgia is a good place for veterans to retire and we want to keep it that way."
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