Colorado should license funeral home workers, state regulators recommend
Colorado regulators recommended the state once again license funeral home workers in light of recent egregious abuses in the industry.
In a 51-page report sent to the state legislature last week, the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies said, “It is clear that the public is harmed by the general lack of regulation of funeral service professionals in Colorado.”
Colorado has long boasted the laxest mortuary regulations in the nation. The state is the only one in the country to license funeral home businesses, not those running them.
Under a recommendation proposed by the Colorado Funeral Directors Association, new funeral home and crematory workers would need to graduate from an accredited mortuary sciences school, pass a national exam, serve a oneyear apprenticeship and pass a background check.
The industry group requested current workers be grandfathered in, only mandating they submit an application and fee to the state and pass a background check.
“People in other states don’t take Colorado seriously because we don’t have a license,” said Joe Walsh, president of the Colorado Funeral Directors Association, in an interview. “I don’t agree with that, but I can understand why people would say that.”
State regulators, in the report, asked stakeholders to list examples of the harm done to the public by lack of regulation — and they had no shortage of cases.
These grievous accounts included multiple discoveries that made international headlines in recent years. The owners of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose, Shirley Koch and Megan Hess, were sentenced last year to 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively, for harvesting and selling body parts around the globe without the consent of grieving families.
In November, authorities arrested the owners of a Fremont County funeral home after the grisly discovery of at least 189 decomposing bodies. Families told reporters that they received certificates of cremation from businesses that they later learned were false. Law enforcement is now sorting through the rubble, working to determine decedent identities.
Without regulation, the state wrote in the report, these mortuary operators could reenter Colorado’s funeral industry upon their release from prison (the state does not currently conduct background checks for those operating or owning funeral homes).
The report listed a host of other harmful activities that could be prevented with additional oversight: improper record-keeping, decedents being physically mistreated, improper storage of bodies and dirty facilities.
“In short, these are allegations of a general lack of respect and dignity for the deceased and are not the types of things that family members would necessarily know about,” state regulators wrote.
The report is not a bill or law — it is merely a recommendation from oversight officials for consideration by lawmakers.
But the review has the backing of Walsh’s organization and its members. And there’s interest from the legislature to reform an industry that has long lagged behind other states.
In October, regulators recommended the state conduct routine inspections of funeral homes and crematories. Until last year, if officials wanted to inspect a funeral home or crematory, the business had to grant permission. The state acknowledged it does not conduct proactive, routine checks.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat, told The Post in October that he’s working on a bill that would mandate these types of inspections, along with some type of licensure for funeral home workers. He admitted the state also needs to devote more resources to the regulation of the industry, which sports an annual budget of less than $75,000 and is staffed with less than one full-time employee.
“I do not see any pitfalls unless you are a bad actor,” Walsh said. “Then, yeah, you shouldn’t be in the industry.”