Pennsylvania County Burial Allowance, Headstone Base and Grave Flags

Pennsylvania puts the cost of a small burial allowance and of marking veterans' graves on its counties. The amounts differ by county class, so the county's own entry, where this catalog has one, gives the local figures. Counties of the second class A through the eighth class (every county except Philadelphia and Allegheny), under 16 Pa.C.S. Chapter 155: The county must contribute at least $75 toward the funeral of each deceased serviceperson who had a legal residence in the county, wherever the person died or was buried (section 15509). A serviceperson who died in service may be claimed at any time; anyone else must be claimed within one year of the death. A county may pay more than $75 but must pay the same to everyone in a calendar year. It must contribute at least $75 toward the funeral of a spouse of a deceased serviceperson, unless the spouse remarried after the serviceperson's death, also within one year (section 15510). It must provide, directly or by reimbursement, a concrete or granite base for a federal headstone, or the lettering on an existing family memorial, at actual cost (section 15513), and a memorial in the family plot where the body cannot be returned. It must put flags on veterans' graves every Memorial Day (section 15522), supplies flagholders at the commissioners' discretion (15512), may buy burial plots (15514) and may pay for grave care (15515). Allegheny County, the second class, runs under the Second Class County Code of 1953: $75 required plus $25 optional toward the funeral of a service person or widow (sections 2109 and 2110), and up to $100 for a headstone, base or lettering (section 2113). The deadlines are the same. Philadelphia, the only county of the first class, is under neither code, and the City publishes no burial allowance figure; ask its Office of Veterans Affairs. Who applies. The personal representative or spouse, or failing them any next of kin, person or veterans' organization that takes on the cost of the burial, on the Department's form with a certified death certificate and the funeral director's affidavit, through the county director of veterans affairs. The county pays the applicant if the bill is paid, otherwise the funeral director. A false application is a misdemeanour. The wartime question. Both codes define a deceased serviceperson to include anyone whose separation from service was honorable, at any time. But the proof the county must require is "an honorable discharge or other official record showing service during a war" (16 Pa.C.S. 15516; Second Class County Code section 2116), and counties read that as limiting the allowance to wartime veterans. A family of a peacetime veteran with an honorable discharge should still ask.