To the Editor:

A Sept. 2 Westerlo Town Board discussion on cemetery funding made me want to set the record straight [“Westerlo Rural was in grave shape when Filkins revitalized the cemetery,” The Altamont Enterprise, Sept. 4, 2019]. Acting Supervisor William Bichteman thought it looked like Westerlo Rural Cemetery turned a profit in recent years; I’m writing to explain why we didn’t.

From April 2015 to June 1, 2018, Tony Sherman was the president of the Westerlo Rural Cemetery. Over time, the newly appointed trustees found it difficult to get detailed reports from cemetery President Tony Sherman regarding burials and sales; therefore we contacted the New York State Association of Cemeteries.

We were informed that, according to state regulations, the cemetery only has to hold one meeting a year. This made it difficult to see there was a possible concern.    

The trustees met with the New York State Association of Cemeteries on two occasions in closed meetings and discovered neither the president nor the treasurer should have been appointed to the cemetery offices they held as neither of them owned plots.

As per New York State Cemetery Rules and Regulations, you must be a plot owner to be an officer and vote in any meetings. The state suggested we give them both an opportunity to purchase plots. We followed the suggestion and informed them that, in order to maintain the offices of which they were appointed by the past president, they would need to purchase plots.

However, after one year, they did not purchase plots; therefore the trustees met and agreed to first remove Tony Sherman as president of the cemetery. The minute we did, Treasurer Liz Hopkins, resigned.

This opened another concern as we found out when she turned over the treasurer’s records, she also kept no accurate records of deposits or checks. Once the records of the president were turned over, we realized there was no accounting of sales or burials, or if there were, they were never turned over to the current cemetery officers.

It took us over six weeks after notifying Mr. Sherman of his removal as president by calling, emailing, and texting as well as trustees visiting his home, at which time he told his neighbor, one of the trustees, that he left everything in the cemetery shed and in turn he called me to let me know. 

I went right down to the cemetery only to find he must have dropped-kicked the file box into the shed as the drawers were all bent and wouldn’t open. Once forced open, many old documents had literally fallen apart into little pieces of paper that were not salvageable.

In addition, after obtaining the keys, I also found three funeral-home checks and several burial transport forms from the year prior in the cemetery dropbox that had been half eaten by mice as they were there so long. At that time, we contacted the funeral homes who re-issued checks and burial transport forms.  

We express regret for not realizing President Sherman and Treasurer Hopkins were not keeping reliable files. We have implemented some new policies and procedures we hope will ensure that this problem does not happen again.

Since the discoveries, we have completed extensive research to recreate the three years, by having volunteers go through records. We also discovered burial-transport forms that were never filed with Westerlo Town Clerk Kathleen Spinnato who in turn never informed anyone at the cemetery that the town clerk’s office was not getting them, which according to New York State Association of Cemeteries and state law the town clerk must keep them on file. (Body Transport Forms are legal documents.)

How is it that Town Clerk Spinnato didn’t think there were any burials in Westerlo Rural Cemetery for three years? We then walked the entire 13-plus acres of the cemetery, looking for and recording dates on the monuments; we searched local obituaries for the past three years on the internet; we contacted local funeral homes and we paid the bank for copies of three years of checks and deposits. 

As I said, we found some checks that were never deposited and had them reissued by the funeral homes.  We have reasonable confidence we have recovered and are aware of all burials.

At this time, we are confident there are no missing funds, and we believe we know what plots were sold.  In our research, we did find one that had its plot sold to another and we had to “relocate” the plot and thankfully no one had been buried there.

One lady told us, “Tony sold me my lot not once but twice, and the third time I got my new deed and put a stone there so he wouldn’t do it again.” We also had to issue a deed in 2018, for a plot purchased on April 10, 2016 as well as a few from earlier in 2018. 

When we contacted the New York State Association of Cemeteries, it said there was “nothing” we can do other than possibly let the public know so they can come forward if they indeed purchased a burial plot or made a deposit on a burial plot for which there is no record within the cemetery or they never received a deed for. They also said, this sadly happens more than the public is aware as at many cemeteries, the officers, like ours, are not paid.  

That is why in 2018 it looked like we had a “profit” — it was 2015, 2016, 2017 and half of 2018 in one accounting. Between our mailing fundraiser where we raised $10,000, a few small fundraisers, and the money we deposited from the previous years it appears as though we had a profit of $3,073.71.

The amount only appears as a profit due to funds deposited in 2018 that should have been deposited between 2015 and mid-2018 by President Sherman. Due to previous years’ money collected, deposited along with the fundraisers, we ended up in the black from the red in 2015. To my knowledge, none of the other cemeteries in Westerlo did fundraisers, nor should anyone have to ...

The fire company, the museum, and the library all get budgeted town funds and all have savings accounts.  Why not the cemeteries where our ancestors over the past 200 years are laid out?

Betty Filkins

President

Westerlo Rural Cemetery

Editor’s note: Betty Filkins is married to Richard Filkins, a Republican councilman on the Westerlo Town Board.

Democratic Clerk Kathleen Spinnato, also up for re-election, responded through The Enterprise, about the allegations on the Body Transfer Forms, “It’s up to the cemetery to deliver them.” Spinnato did confirm that there was a gap in documents from 2015 to 2018 but said that, since then, Betty Filkins had delivered the missing documents to the town hall.

Spinnato also said of cemeteries, “They are a separate entity from the town.”

Democratic Councilman Anthony Sherman, who is up for re-election, said the cemetery’s filing cabinet was in “rough shape” when he got it, and he left it just as he found it. Sherman said he digitally provided all the information he was supposed to on body transport to the New York State Division of Cemeteries. He said, further, that providing information to the town clerk was Betty Filkins’s job as she was acting secretary during the time he was president.

The New York State Division of Cemeteries responded to an Enterprise inquiry about filings from April 2015 to June 2018, saying, “The annual reports for those four years were filed on time.”