§The weekly dispatch
Vol. I · No. 23State of Deathcare
Weekly intelligence for deathcare professionals — legislative updates, industry trends, and community highlights, every Monday morning.
Detroit, MichiganJuly 13, 2026AI-assisted · editorially reviewed
Subscribe — free for membersLatest issue · #23
July 13, 2026
Issue #23 · July 13, 2026
A $1M Bond to Bury Someone in a Forest — and Ohio Moves on Composting First
Brooks Township answered its courtroom loss with a February ordinance demanding a $1 million bond — twenty times the state's perpetual-care requirement — from Michigan's would-be first conservation cemetery. Meanwhile Ohio's bipartisan Green Burial Act puts a NOR-legal neighbor on the board before Lansing has a bill.
Editor's note
"Two numbers tell this issue. The first is $1,000,000 — the bond Brooks Township now requires against Michigan's $50,000 statutory perpetual-care fund; the Institute for Justice calls it a de-facto ban and has vowed round two. The second is 2028 — the year NOR advocates are now targeting for licensed Michigan operations, likely inside a cemetery-rules omnibus. If Ohio's Green Burial Act moves first, the families already shipping loved ones to Washington will only have to cross one state line. Watch the omnibus; it's the vehicle."
Bills to watch this week
MI SB 157↑ Rising
Pet Cemetery Regulation Act — advocates now point to a broader cemetery-rules update as the likely vehicle for disposition reform; SB 157 remains the only cemetery bill in play.
MI HB 4077→ Stable
Public Act 3 of 2026 — EDRS countdown continues: paper death certification ends March 16, 2027. Federal parallel worth watching: H.R. 4398 would force VA physicians to certify veteran deaths within 48 hours.
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#green-burial#brooks-township#natural-organic-reduction#ohio#veterans#michigan
Previous issues
2221201918
July 6, 2026
#preneed#escrow#enforcement
The Cost of a Broken Escrow: Kaufman Gets 85–240 Months, $1.11M Restitution
The Michigan AG closed the Huron County preneed case on May 11: a decade of unescrowed prepaid funeral funds, 204 victims, and a criminal-enterprise conviction. Every preneed seller in the state should treat the sentencing memo as a free compliance audit.
0 bills tracked1 states
June 22, 2026
#natural-organic-reduction#pricing#green-burial
A $5,950 Disposition Lands on the East Coast — and Michigan Has No Answer Yet
Earth Funeral's 37,000 sq ft Elkridge, MD facility opened in May priced under the NFDA cremation-with-funeral median. Fourteen states now allow natural organic reduction; Michigan allows neither NOR nor alkaline hydrolysis. The pricing pressure will not wait for Lansing.
0 bills tracked1 states
May 12, 2026
#death-records#edrs#michigan
Michigan Enacts Death-Record Modernization; Pet-Cemetery Bill Awaits the House
Public Acts 3 & 4 of 2026 (HB 4077/4078) move death certification onto the state EDRS system and ease medical-examiner bottlenecks — with a hard March 2027 deadline for funeral homes. Meanwhile SB 157 sits in House committee.
3 bills tracked1 states
May 5, 2026
#death-records#edrs#medical-examiner
What HB 4077/4078 Mean for Your Death-Certificate Workflow
The newly-signed death-record package is operational change, not just a press release. Here's the EDRS transition timeline, the medical-examiner certification shift, and what to do before March 2027.
2 bills tracked1 states
April 28, 2026
#pet-cemetery#cremation#natural-organic-reduction
Pet-Cemetery Rules Stall in the House; Cremation Keeps Climbing
SB 157 — Michigan's first pet-cemetery framework — cleared the Senate but has sat in House committee since June. Nationally, cremation reached 63.4% and natural organic reduction is now legal in 14 states (not Michigan). What it means for operators.
1 bills tracked1 states
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