SB 416

Under current law, with certain exceptions, no person may disturb a burial site or catalogued land contiguous to a catalogued burial site. Any person who knows or has reasonable grounds to believe that a burial site or the catalogued land contiguous to a catalogued burial site is being disturbed or may be disturbed must immediately notify the director of the State Historical Society. A burial site is any place where human remains are buried. Under current law, the director of SHS must identify burial sites and sufficient contiguous land necessary to protect burial sites from disturbance. After collecting sufficient evidence, and holding a hearing if requested by a person who owns or leases land on which a burial site is located, the director of SHS must record a burial site and contiguous land necessary to protect the burial site in the catalog of burial sites.

This bill requires any person who knows or has reasonable grounds to believe that a burial site within a cemetery or the catalogued land contiguous to a catalogued burial site within a cemetery is disturbed or may be disturbed in violation of law to report the disturbance or potential disturbance as soon as reasonably possible to the local police department or county sheriff’s office. Each sheriff and police department must then prepare a report for each disturbance or potential disturbance reported and send a copy of the report to the Burial Sites Preservation Board and the Cemetery Board. The bill requires the Department of Safety and Professional Services to prescribe a form to be used by each sheriff and police department to report each disturbance or potential disturbance. Further, the bill requires the Cemetery Board to receive reports from each sheriff and police department, review each report received during the previous calendar year at the board’s first annual meeting, and annually submit a report to DSPS listing each report received by the board during the previous calendar year and the address, municipality, and county in which the disturbance or potential disturbance described in each report allegedly occurred.