Out of space — As graves fill, revenue will dwindle

In quiet nooks of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, it's easy to forget that a city of 200,000 people is blocks away.

Tens of thousands of graves are silent neighbors in the Avenues, and the 250 acres of grass and trees make it the capital city's largest chunk of developed open space. But it's a swath of land that the city pours money into each year to keep operating, and a time will come soon when the cemetery must find a different way to pay for itself.

The cemetery is running out of space, which means that the money from selling graves will eventually trickle off as the graves fill, bringing the city's revenue to zero for a nearly full cemetery, with no new options for cash.

Eric Jergensen, the Salt Lake City councilman who represents the neighborhood, said the inevitability of that scenario means it's a good time for the city to start thinking about how to keep this slice of Utah history alive.

"Who's responsible for the upkeep of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, no matter who's buried there? City residents? Families of those who are buried there?" Jergensen said. "I think it ends up being the city residents who benefit the most."

The cemetery is raising its fees by $50 as of July 1 for plots and for opening and closing graves. The cost for a plot will be $700, and the fee for opening and closing a grave will be $500. City staff only uncover and cover the graves, while mortuaries are responsible for lowering caskets and placing vaults.

The slight fee increase will not offset the share of city funds that the cemetery uses. The fees pay for $505,500 of the $1.1 million that the cemetery needs each year. That $1.1 million pays the salaries of the grounds crews that keep the grass trimmed, maintain the sprinklers, sweep away grave decorations twice a year and fill potholes in the 20 or so roads that crisscross the east-bench cemetery's hillsides.

The city kicks in $604,629, and as far as anyone can remember, that type of subsidy goes back to the earliest days of the cemetery in 1849. The first burial was Mary Wallace, 8 months old, who died just after her family reached the Salt Lake Valley after crossing the Great Plains. She was buried in 1847, and her father, George Wallace, became the cemetery's first sexton after Brigham Young designated the city cemetery for the area around Wallace's tiny grave.

About 120,000 people are buried in the cemetery now. The 4,300 empty sites should be enough to last another 15 to 20 years, depending on demand.