AB 926: Cemeteries: endowment funds.

Existing law authorizes a cemetery authority which maintains a cemetery to place its cemetery under endowment care and establish, maintain, and operate an endowment care fund. Existing law requires the principal of all funds for endowment care to be invested, and only the net income to be used for the maintenance, repair, or restoration of the cemetery property. Existing law requires each cemetery authority to file a report with the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau setting forth specified information, including, among other things, the amount collected and deposited in both endowment care funds. Existing law authorizes the bureau to extend the date on which this report is due by 30 days.

This bill would authorize the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau to extend the date on which the above-mentioned report is due by no more than 9 months. The bill, if a cemetery authority establishes an endowment care fund, would make the fund automatically subject to a net income distribution method and would specify the requirements for distribution under that method. The bill would also authorize a cemetery authority, its directors, or its board of trustees to, on or after January 1, 2020, apply to the bureau to convert its endowment care fund from a net income distribution method to a unitrust distribution method, as defined, and would describe the conditions under which the bureau would approve that application. The bill would require the bureau to review, on an annual basis, whether a cemetery authority continues to meet the conditions of approval for the unitrust distribution method, and would authorize the bureau to require the use of the net income distribution method if the cemetery authority does not meet those conditions. The bill would require the bureau to evaluate the effectiveness of the unitrust distribution authority and to report at its next 2 hearings before the Joint Sunset Review Oversight Hearings of the Assembly Committee on Business and Professions and Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development that occurs after January 1, 2018.