Colorado will finally license funeral home directors, conduct routine inspections
Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a pair of bills that will bring Colorado in line with other states in regulating the funeral home and mortuary industry.
SB24-173 will require, for the first time, that funeral home directors and people holding other industry jobs obtain licenses by passing background checks, earning a degree in mortuary science and apprenticing under a seasoned worker.
The second bill, HB24-1335, requires state regulators to conduct routine inspections of facilities — something they have never had the power to do.
“It’s time to professionalize the funeral home industry in Colorado,” Polis said at a news conference Friday.
The governor’s signatures come after a string of horrifying cases across the state in recent years, including the illegal sale of body parts, findings of hundreds of decomposing bodies and the dispersal of fake ashes to grieving families.
Colorado’s regulations over the funeral home industry long have been the weakest in the nation.
The state had been the only one in the country that didn’t license funeral directors or require some certification. State officials haven’t regularly inspected funeral homes and only devoted one-quarter of one full-time position to regulate 220 funeral homes and 77 crematories.
The Colorado Funeral Directors Association, the industry group representing funeral homes, worked with lawmakers on the bills and agreed it was long past time to bring the state in line with the rest of the country.
Lawmakers also tackled coroner regulation this session.
HB24-1100, signed into law in April, requires coroners of counties with a population exceeding 150,000 to be forensic pathologists or certified death investigators.
Previously, coroners had few qualification requirements: The person had to be 18 or older, a U.S. citizen, a resident of the county he or she served and have no felony convictions. There was no requirement to have a medical degree or any previous training related to death investigations.
Qualifications for coroners in smaller Colorado counties, though, will remain the same.
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