CHARLESTON -- Fees at the county-maintained Oak Grove Cemetery are going up in 2011.
Mississippi County Commissioners approved a new fee schedule for the cemetery during their regular meeting Thursday.
County Clerk Junior DeLay said he was advised by local funeral home directors that fees at the Oak Grove Cemetery were "quite a bit less than other cemeteries."
DeLay said the county has not adjusted Oak Grove's rates since March 1999.
County officials also said additional funds to maintain the cemetery will be needed since the Missouri Department of Corrections recently terminated its work-release program with the county for prisoners from the Southeast Correctional Center. The prisoner labor had been used to maintain the cemetery, among other things.
DeLay predicted the county is "going to have extreme labor costs there next summer."
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