Goshen is starting 2026 with some higher fees.
The city council Monday locked in annual cemetery fee increases of roughly three percent for the next 10 years. While those annual increases have been a longstanding practice, Mayor Gina Leichty says the city still has to dip into its general fund to cover the full cost.
"There’s costs of labor," Leichty told council members at their previous meeting. "There’s costs of the equipment, and we maintain cemeteries into perpetuity."
With Indiana’s tax reform tightening Goshen’s budget, the city could be looking at bigger cemetery fee increases in the future. Leichty said she’d be open to getting a comprehensive analysis, to see how much the city would have to charge to completely cover costs.
As it stands, the cost of a traditional grave space is now $825 for a Goshen resident, gradually going up to $1,075 in 2035, plus burial costs.
Additionally, council members raised the building department’s contractor licensing and registration fees by three percent, to keep up with the cost of living. And water and sewer rate hikes will be up for final approval later this month, averaging around 6.7 percent overall for a typical customer.
