Jonathan Vander Plaat, a member of the Bergen County Funeral Directors Association, died on November 21, 2021. He was 56.

A resident of Hawthorne, Jonathan was the managing director for the Vander Plaat Memorial Home in Paramus. He served the Bergen County community as a funeral director for several decades.

He is survived by his children, Erin, Meghan and Ryan; his parents, Henry Vander Plaat and Carol O’Neill; a brother, Jeff Vander Plaat; and a sister, Nancy Begin.

Contributions in Jonathan’s memory can be made to The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 4550 Montgomery Avenue, Suite 1100 N, Bethesda, MD 20814 or to The Seeing Eye, P.O. Box 375, Morristown, NJ 07963-0375.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. makes it a point to attend funerals. The death rituals in Black communities have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. And children’s graves are being vandalized in Indiana. These stories and more are in the week in funeral news. 

NEWS

Death Rituals in Black Communities Have Been Altered or Forgone in the Pandemic
Interview by Ayesha Rascoe (NPR)
COVID-19's death toll in the United States keeps climbing. That number today is over 837,000. This has meant a lot of business for funeral homes over the last two years, but this doesn't mean funeral homes are making more money because many Americans went without costly burials, opting for less expensive cremations. Listen here.

Burial, Cremation and Other End-of-Life Options for Australians
By Georgina Pashley (Starts at 60)
Approximately 170,000 people die in Australia each year, and approximately 54 percent are cremated while approximately 30 percent are buried in a cemetery, leaving nearly 26 percent of people to consider other options for the handling of their bodies. Read more here.

North Italian Town to Establish Museum at Burial Site of 17th-Century Kabbalists
By Giovanni Vigna (The Times of Israel)
After years of disagreement, local officials and Italy’s umbrella Jewish group reached an agreement to turn an armory built on top of a centuries-old Jewish cemetery into a “House of Remembrance” museum. Read more here.

Biden, Funerals and a Bygone America
By Annie Linsky (The Washington Post)
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke at a private memorial for the former first lady of Indiana, eulogized two former Republican senators and sat in the audience to honor the life of a onetime GOP secretary of state. He flew to Delaware to pay homage to the state’s former governor. And he made a four-hour round trip to Wilmington, DE, on a Wednesday night in May to drop in at the viewing of a longtime former Senate aide. All while running the country. Read more here.

Chaos at COVID-19 Burial Site
By Donstan Bonn (Daily Express)
What was supposed to be a simple exercise of digging a grave for the burial of a COVID-19 victim, turned into chaos and confusion, and a stand-off between a city government in Trinidad and a local workers union. Read more here.

Indiana Mother Says Her Teenage Daughter's Burial Site Was Vandalized
By Kit Hanley and Chris Essex (WTHI)
Greene County, IN, is reporting an increase in both grave thefts and vandalizations. Most of the graves affected so far have been those of children. Read more here.

The New Jersey Senate has passed a bill that would make a supplemental appropriation of $8 million in the Department of Human Services' current fiscal year budget to increase the reimbursement for funeral, burial and crematory services provided to some residents on public assistance.

Bill S-4272, introduced by Senator Sandra Cunningham (D-31) was approved by the Senate 39-0 on January 10, 2022. The Assembly version. A-6060, introduced by Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-28) was unanimously passed on December 20, 2021.

The legislation now heads to the governor for consideration. If the bill becomes law, Work First New Jersey reimbursements will increase by $1,000 for each eligible decedent. Though the law would be effective immediately upon signature by the governor, the Department of Human Services will need some time to implement the measure and to revise the reimbursement amounts for funeral homes and cemeteries.

“We are grateful to Assemblywoman Tucker and Senator Cunningham for championing this long-overdue increase,” said New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association Director of Government Relations Althea D. Ford. “While there is still more to be done with stakeholders to fully fund the WFNJ program as outlined in the 1985 law, I am pleased that stakeholders have taken this initial step, are taking this matter seriously and working with us to address the decades-long funding disparity.”

The NJSFDA, which had advocated for the bill, will remain engaged with DHS to ensure that the current formula used to determine the reimbursement amounts is maintained.

The NJSFDA continues to remain engaged in shoring up additional funding for WFNJ funerals. With the state’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget process underway, the NJSFDA is scheduled to meet with the Governor's Office and treasury officials to push for additional funds. Stay tuned to the FORUM for more information.

The New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association has been informed by the state Department of Health that a spike in COVID-19 cases and possible deaths is expected over the next 30 to 45 days.

The surge in cases, driven by the Omicron variant, coupled with staffing shortages due to COVID-19 protocols, has the potential to tax the resources of the state’s funeral homes, crematories and cemeteries, the state warned.

“Funeral directors are urged to take this sudden uptick seriously,” NJSFDA CEO and Executive Director George R. Kelder Jr., CFSP, wrote in an email to the association’s members. “All funeral homes should prepare for a significant additional strain over the next 30 to 45 days from increased caseload volume, complicated by your own staff absences.”

Kelder, in his email, urged funeral homes to consider instituting masking mandates in their buildings, ramping up disinfection protocols and not delaying dispositions in order to hold services. Governor Phil Murphy has repeatedly stated that he does not anticipate ordering restrictions at this time, but Kelder said precautions on the part of funeral homes would be prudent during the surge.

Anticipating an increase in the number of deaths, Kelder said funeral homes should make plans to utilize alternative crematories in case their most commonly used facility begins to get overwhelmed. Funeral homes should also consider diverting cases if their own caseload becomes too heavy to handle.

The NJSFDA is also requesting that additional refrigerated storage, such as what was arranged during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, be set up in case the number of deaths begins to tax the existing system. Kelder also said the association is seeking a continuation of some waivers that had been set to expire.

“The commissioner is working on our behalf with the governor to have funeral service’s emergency waivers permitting interns to oversee New Jersey dispositions and providing relief from the in-person mandatory continuing education requirements (currently scheduled to expire tomorrow, January 11) temporarily extended,” Kelder wrote.

Kelder also said funeral homes should ensure that they have an adequate stock of personal protective equipment to handle any increase in caseloads. Some limited stock of PPE still exists at regional locations where equipment had been stored during the initial COVID-19 surge in 2020.

The following locations may have some stock available in limited quantities:

Bergen County Funeral Directors Association
Bruce Van Tassel, 201.384.0700, bergencountyfda@gmail.com
Riewerts Memorial Home, Inc., 187 South Washington Avenue, Bergenfield, NJ 07621

Essex, Union and W. Hudson Funeral Directors Association
Shawn’te Harvell, CFSP, 908.352.9114, smithfuneralhome_elizabeth@aol.com
Smith Funeral Home, 455 North Broad Street, Elizabeth, NJ 07207

Middlesex and Somerset Funeral Directors Association
Antonietta Cuoco, 908.715.8569, cuocofuneral.creation@gmail.com
Cuoco Funeral and Cremation Services, 10 West End Ave, Somerville, NJ 08876

Monmouth and Ocean Funeral Directors Association
Thomas J. Saragusa, 732-775-0434, tsaragusa@aol.com
Ocean Grove Memorial Home, 118 Main Avenue, Ocean Grove, NJ 07756

Mark L. Tobie, 609.597.4411, marktobie@gmail.com
Maxwell-Tobie Funeral Home & Cremation Service LLC, 573 Mill Creek Road, Manahawkin, NJ 08050

Passaic County Funeral Directors Association
Jonathan R. Bender, 732.254.9393, Jrbender25@gmail.com
Brunswick Memorial Home, 16 Little Rock Lane, Tinton Falls, NJ 07712

Those in need are requested to leave messages with the funeral home.

In his email, Kelder praised the response of the state’s funeral directors to the pandemic, but he also sounded a warning.

“We have performed phenomenal work to date but clearly are not through this public health crisis after 22 months of personal and professional stress,” Kelder wrote.

New Jersey residents who applied for and received Federal Emergency Management Agency COVID-19 funeral reimbursement funds in 2021 were awarded more than $63.6 million, according to year-end figures provided by FEMA.

The money, given to New Jerseyans with family members who died of COVID-19 or coronavirus-related causes, accounted for 3.9 percent of the more than $1.6 billion in aid awarded nationwide.

The FEMA figures also showed that the average award in New Jersey was $6,851, while nationwide that figure was $6,508. Eligible families could receive up to $9,000 in funeral reimbursement.

The FEMA funeral aid program was announced in February and the agency began taking applications in April. Families who lost someone to COVID-19 were urged to call 844.684.6333 (TTY: 800.462.7585) in order to register for the program. Callers were then sent a packet seeking information, such as a death certificate and funeral bill. Once the information was returned, FEMA began reviewing it for eligibility.

Some applications, however, were rejected for a variety of reasons. In New Jersey, for example, five applications were rejected as duplicates. Another 59 were rejected because the funeral was paid by another source than the applicant. A total of 74 were declined because the funeral was paid through an insurance policy. Twenty-two applications were withdrawn. Other applications were rejected for reasons such as insufficient documents, missing death certificates and ineligible expenses.

A total of 229 applicants were declared ineligible for benefits.

The percentage of applications for COVID-19 victims in New Jersey stood at 48.1 percent at the end of 2021, a number well above the national percentage, which was 46.5 percent. Nationally, 6,542 applicants were declared ineligible.

New Jersey’s better-than-average response rate is not surprising, considering the impact COVID-19 had on the state. More than 29,000 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the state since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, according to New Jersey Department of Health statistics.

The total number of COVID-19 deaths in New Jersey ranks 10th in the nation, according to The New York Times. California has the highest number, followed by Texas, Florida and New York. East Coast states bore the early brunt of the impact of the virus, but some southern states such as Florida and Georgia have seen a spike in deaths.

New Jersey, at 71 percent, also ranks 10th in the percentage of residents who are considered fully vaccinated against the virus. Nationwide, only 62 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.

A proposed increase in funeral homes’ Work First New Jersey funeral allowance is one step closer to reality.

The New Jersey Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee passed a bill that would make a supplemental appropriation of $8 million in the Department of Human Services in the current fiscal year in order to increase the reimbursement for funeral, burial and crematory services provided to some residents on public assistance.

Bill S-4272, introduced by Senator Sandra Cunningham (D-31) now heads to the full Senate, the final legislative hurdle before being sent to the governor for consideration. If the bill becomes law, Work First New Jersey funeral reimbursements would increase by $810 and the cemetery allowance by $190 immediately.

The Assembly version, A-6060, was unanimously passed on December 20, 2021. The New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association has testified and advocated for the increase.

This temporary $8 million measure is meant to assist the NJSFDA in advancing its request for the DHS to demonstrate progress in meeting its statutory responsibility and increase its funeral allowance budget beginning in Fiscal Year 2023 by an additional $18 million each year.

Since 1985, the state has failed to follow its own requirement to fund WFNJ funerals at a rate of 75 percent of the defined WFNJ funeral as disclosed in NJSFDA’s Biennial Statistical Pricing Survey. The 2021 survey revealed that the state is only contributing 18.1 percent of the defined WFNJ funeral, which creates a financial burden on the state’s funeral homes.

NJSFDA CEO and Executive Director George R. Kelder Jr., CFSP, pointed out that even if the association is successful in securing an additional $18 million in the FY 2023 budget, funeral directors would still only receive reimbursement at the rate of 37.5 percent of the defined WFNJ funeral.

“The increase in funding, however, would still contribute immensely to lessening the significant financial burden placed on our funeral businesses in overseeing the disposition of New Jersey’s less fortunate,” Kelder said.