State regulators recommend funeral home professional licensing to legislators

DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) -- Three months after nearly 200 decomposing bodies were found in a Penrose funeral home, state regulators are recommending the requirement of licensing in the funeral home industry.

The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies released a sunrise review report Friday on funeral homes and crematories with recommendations for new regulations to the Colorado General Assembly.

The report recommends the licensing of funeral service professionals after more than 40 years of no regulation in the industry. The report cites nearly 20 different state incidents, including Return to Nature and Sunset Mesa, for why regulation is needed.

"These cases of harm is not always clear and their individual levels of training is unknown," the report states. "The examples of harm, taken as a whole, justify the regulation of Funeral Service Professionals. Such regulation will help to ensure that those in whom the public places trust to care for their deceased loved ones is not misplaced, and when it is, appropriate disciplinary actions can be taken."

The proposed regulation would require professionals to graduate from a mortuary school, pass a national board exam, serve a one-year apprenticeship and pass a background check.

Ever since the decomposing bodies were found in the defunct funeral home, families who used Return to Nature have been pushing for increased regulations, especially individual licensing for funeral home professionals.

As KRDO13 Investigates previously reported, Colorado is the only state in the country that doesn’t require funeral home professionals, like funeral home directors, embalmers, and cremationists, to be individually licensed. The Colorado Funeral Directors Association (CFDA) said it even polled its members and the “vast majority” wanted licensing.

“We need to get something in place to keep people that have been kicked out of other states from coming in here and becoming bad apples in our state,” said CFDA President Joe Walsh. “Now, what form is that? That is a whole other world of discussion.”

CFDA was the organization that requested DORA to review regulations in the funeral home industry. According to DORA’s website, “anyone proposing to regulate an unregulated occupation or profession must submit a sunrise application to the Colorado Office of Policy, Research, and Regulatory Reform.” CFDA submitted an application in June, months before the Return to Nature situation.

“The CFDA seeks licensure or certification that will offer consumer protection based on the
standards of competence, honesty, trustworthiness, fairness and professionalism; and that
also promotes standards of practice to protect the health and safety of the public and
employees of funeral establishments,” the application states.

Once DORA receives the application, it conducts a “comprehensive study” and then submits a written report to the Colorado General Assembly recommending if regulation is needed. According to Colorado law, the need for new regulation is based on the following criteria:

• Whether the unregulated practice of the occupation or profession clearly harms or endangers the health, safety or welfare of the public;
• Whether the practitioners of the profession or occupation exercise independent judgment, and whether the public can reasonably be expected to benefit from the direct regulation of the profession or occupation if a practitioner’s judgment or practice is limited or subject to the judgment or supervision of others;
• Whether the public needs, and can be reasonably expected to benefit from, an assurance of initial and continuing professional or occupational competence;
• Whether the public can be adequately protected by other means in a more cost-effective manner; and
• Whether the imposition of any disqualifications on applicants for licensure, certification, relicensure, or recertification based on criminal history serves public safety or commercial or consumer protection interests.

Even though DORA recommended new regulations, the ultimate decision will be up to legislators. Both Republican State Representative Matt Soper and Democratic Senator Dylan Roberts said they are working on proposed legislation to require individual licensing.

Although CFDA supports and even advocates for licensing, there’s concern any new regulation could force current funeral home professionals, who don’t have the required training, to leave the industry. It’s why CFDA President Joe Walsh said he would like current funeral home professionals exempt from potential new requirements.

“I don't think it's right, fair or just for the state to all of a sudden yank the employment out from underneath these folks because all of a sudden they change their playing field but nothing else changed,” Walsh said.

Even if there was state licensing, Walsh said it likely wouldn’t have stopped the Return to Nature situation from happening.

“Would a license have stopped that? A piece of paper is not going to change somebody's morals or ethics,” Walsh said.

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