BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                     SENATE GOVERNANCE & FINANCE COMMITTEE
                            Senator Lois Wolk, Chair
          

          BILL NO:  AB 966                      HEARING:  6/22/11
          AUTHOR:  Yamada                       FISCAL:  No
          VERSION:  6/13/11                     TAX LEVY:  No
          CONSULTANT:  Weinberger               

                            DAVIS CEMETERY DISTRICT
          

            Allows the Davis Cemetery District to inter nonresidents 
                          under specified conditions.


                           Background and Existing Law  

          California's 253 public cemetery districts are separate 
          local governments that operate cemeteries and provide 
          interment services, mostly in rural areas and suburbs that 
          were formerly rural communities.  County boards of 
          supervisors appoint the cemetery districts' boards of 
          trustees, composed of three to five registered voters from 
          within the districts' boundaries.  The districts finance 
          their operations with small shares of local property tax 
          revenues, by selling interment rights, and by charging for 
          services.  

          State law limits who may be buried in a district cemetery.  
          Generally, cemetery districts can bury only residents, 
          former residents, property taxpayers, former taxpayers, 
          certain eligible nonresidents, and their family members.

          Responding to an Attorney General's opinion, the 
          Legislature allowed the Oroville Cemetery District (Butte 
          County) to inter up to 100 nonresidents in a former Jewish 
          cemetery which the District had acquired (SB 1906, Johnson, 
          1982).  When it revised the Public Cemetery District Law, 
          the Legislature retained Oroville's special provision (SB 
          341, Senate Local Government Committee, 2003).  Last year, 
          the Legislature allowed the Elsinore Valley Cemetery 
          District (River-side County) to inter up to 536 
          nonresidents in a former Jewish cemetery, under specified 
          conditions (AB 1969, Jeffries, 2010).

          Formed in 1922, the Davis Cemetery District (Yolo County) 
          serves residents and property taxpayers within a 43 square 




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          mile service area, most of which is in the City of Davis.  
          The District's 2005 Master Plan projects that the 
          cemetery's 25 acres will serve the community's burial needs 
          for the next 100 years.  

          Congregation Bet Haverim is the only synagogue in Yolo 
          County.  Members of the synagogue, including several 
          families from outside of the Davis Cemetery District, want 
          to purchase a group of plots to supplement an existing 
          Congregation Bet Haverim group of plots in the Davis 
          Cemetery.  To accommodate this purchase, Davis Cemetery 
          District officials want the Legislature to grant the 
          District an exemption from the statute restricting 
          nonresident burials.


                                   Proposed Law
                                         
          Assembly Bill 966 authorizes the Davis Cemetery District to 
          inter up to a total of 500 interments of people who are 
          neither residents nor property taxpayers in the District, 
          if:
                 The board of trustees determines that the cemetery 
               has adequate space for the foreseeable future;
                 The District has an endowment care fund that meets 
               at least a minimum payment as prescribed by law;  and  
                 The District requires the payment of a non-resident 
               fee, as set by law.


                               State Revenue Impact

           No estimate.

                                     Comment  

           Purpose of the bill  .  Although statewide laws attempt to 
          embrace a wide variety local conditions and circumstances, 
          legislators can't anticipate every local need.  Responding 
          to a special request nearly 30 years ago, the Legislature 
          allowed the Oroville Cemetery District to bury 
          nonresidents, if three conditions existed.  Last year, 
          subject to the same conditions, the Legislature approved a 
          similar exception for the Elsinore Valley Cemetery 
          District.  To facilitate a group purchase of cemetery plots 
          by members of the Congregation Bet Haverim Synagogue, 





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          including some who are neither residents nor property 
          taxpayers in the Davis Cemetery District, AB 966 provides 
          the Davis Cemetery District with a similar exception.


                                 Assembly Actions  

          Assembly Local Government Committee: 9-0
          Assembly Floor:                         78-0


                         Support and Opposition  (6/16/11)

           Support  :  Davis Cemetery District; Congregation Bet 
          Haverim; letters from 20 individuals.
           
          Opposition  :  Unknown.