Berks County Burial Allowance, Headstone Allowance and Grave Flags

The duties are the State's, under 16 Pa.C.S. Chapter 155; see the Pennsylvania entry on county burial and grave benefits. Berks County Veterans Affairs (610-378-5601, [email protected]) takes the applications. The allowance. Berks pays $75, the statutory minimum, toward the funeral and burial of an honorably discharged veteran who served at least one day in a period of war and whose legal residence at death was Berks County, and $75 for the widow or widower of such a veteran who lived in the county, each claimed within one year of the death. Funeral directors email the DD-214, the death certificate and the funeral bill; if the bill is marked paid in full, the person named on it is repaid, otherwise the funeral home is, as section 15511 provides. The county's guidance to funeral directors calls it the "$75 County Burial Debit Card Benefit" and says a veteran without active-duty wartime service on the discharge papers is not entitled. Headstones. The applicant chooses one: up to $100 toward a headstone of prescribed dimensions, which must be installed, with a notarized certificate of erection, the applicant paying for the foundation; up to $50 toward the base for a federal marker or a headstone; or up to $50 toward lettering on an existing headstone. Section 15513 makes the county provide the concrete or granite base for a federal headstone, or the lettering, at actual cost, approved before the work starts; a family whose base or lettering costs more than $50 should ask the office to apply under that section. Flags and flag holders. The county gives Memorial Day flags and flag holders free to funeral homes, veterans' organizations, volunteers and families, including a Berks County peacetime holder. Organizations write on letterhead to the department. What the county's papers have out of date or in conflict. The burial application (revised January 2017) cites the "General County Code of 1955", which Act 14 of 2024 replaced with 16 Pa.C.S. Chapter 155. And the English burial page dates Vietnam "in country" service from November 1, 1955, as federal law now does, while the Spanish page still says February 21, 1961.