County indigent burial funds elapsing quickly

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Henry County?s budget for indigent burials is running tight.

County supervisors, meeting in regular session Thursday morning, were told by Sarah Berndt, county coordinator of disability services and general assistance director, that the county has already paid for five burials with half the fiscal year remaining.

The county budgets $16,000 for eight burials per fiscal year, or $2,000 per burial.

Berndt said the matter might have to be discussed as the county nears its budgeting cap. ?You aren?t obligated (by Iowa Code) to pay for burials,? she said, ?but all the counties around us do. However, we are on the high end (of funding for such burials).?

She said that a regular burials costs around $6,000 while cremation runs between $3,000-$3,500.

The county official said the supervisors have several alternatives, which include increasing the budget or reducing the county?s contribution toward burial expenses and, consequently, funding more burials.

Berndt said the county has enough funds left for three burials and should those funds be used, she would come before the board again to take action.

In another agenda item, Jim Pedrick, director for corporate and foundation relations at Iowa Wesleyan University, appeared before the board, requesting a contribution of $10,000 from the county?s local option sales tax revenues for fiscal year 2017 to support ?Wesleyan 2020, Igniting Our Passions.? The program is IWU?s strategic plan for the next five years.

The county contributed $5,000 to Iowa Wesleyan during the current fiscal year. Pedrick said the funds were used to offset expenses incurred for a number of events and activities promoting Iowa Wesleyan University. One of those events was when the new Iowa Wesleyan University name was rolled out at the August 2015 Rock around the Block event at Central Park, in Mt. Pleasant.

?This is an important plan we want to carry out,? Pedrick said, referring to the school?s strategic plan. ?We want to accomplish it so we can grow?There is a passion to build up what we have and reach our full potential.?

The IWU official said the school wants to offer a master?s degree in the near future, but was not sure in which program the school would offer the degree.

This year, freshmen enrollment was up 62 percent from 2014, he continued. However, more importantly, the IWU?s fall retention of students was over 83 percent, an increase of 40 percentage points in two years. He also noted that 40 new international students would be enrolling at IWU at the beginning of the second semester.

IWU?s strategic plan encompasses four themes, 13 goals and 37 initiatives, Pedrick noted. ?Based on the input of 900 participants in 30 stakeholder groups over the next five years, IWU is committed to academic innovation and student success?and creating a technology that is flexible, innovative, integrative and supports a 24-hour learning environment,? he said.

Through strategic planning, Iowa Wesleyan hopes to add new or expand undergraduate, online and graduate programs and majors to meet the demands of students and the region and to meet merging high demand career fields. The school hopes to add two new programs/majors per year or more.

Other goals include establishing a center that fosters rural innovation, leadership, development and entrepreneurship and developing a technology upgrade and recapitalization plan to update hardware, software and Web applications. The institution also hopes to transition to become a Google university to optimize administrative and instructional technological integration and developing enrollment and a retention early-warning system for at-risk students.

?We are working hard to grow and thrive,? Pedrick emphasized. ?When Iowa Wesleyan grows and thrives, there is a multiplier factor that helps the community and region.? Supervisors will consider IWU?s request during the fiscal 2017 budgeting process, which begins after Jan. 1.

The board will meet again on Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.