Government keeps close tabs on delis, on funeral parlors not so much

     Burying a loved one is much harder than buying a corned beef sandwich. More expensive, too.
     Trust me, I've done both.
     When my mother died last year, my brother and I were immediately faced with a series of difficult decisions. She had bought burial plots in Colorado. Bury her there? I pictured the two of us standing in some windy nowhere in Boulder County, at a funeral attended by nobody else. No. We'd bury her here and put mountains on her grave marker — you can get those, for an additional charge.
     Speaking of money. I floated an idea: donate the body to science? It would save, oh, $20,000 of our father's dwindling savings. That would pay for his care for, gee, almost three months.
     "A funeral is part of doing the right thing," my brother said, invoking our mantra for handling our parents' affairs. So we had a funeral.
     With a corned beef sandwich, there are also choices: Fatty or lean? Rye or a kaiser roll? Hot or cold? Don't forget condiments. But those are easier: fatty, rye, hot, yellow mustard. Far less expensive, too. At Kaufman's Bagel and Delicatessen in Skokie, it'll set you back $14.75.
     Given the two experiences — the heart-rending, hugely expensive funeral, and the pleasant, not-that-costly sandwich — why is it the state of Illinois so thoroughly inspects delis while so being so lax about monitoring funeral homes?
     "I have so many inspections I can't see straight," said Bette Dworkin, owner of Kaufman's. "The Skokie Health Department, three times a year, a thorough inspection, inside and out. Weights and measures comes in. A whole list of backflow devices need to be tested."
     Meanwhile, Illinois funeral directors are licensed but not the funeral homes the they operate, which are inspected when they open or change hands, and never inspected again, unless there is a complaint, and sometimes not even then. Which leads to periodic stomach-churning horrors, such as the 56 decomposing bodies found at a funeral home in South Deering, documented in the Sun-Times this past week.
     Across the border is a much different situation.
     "In the state of Wisconsin, there is licensing of the actual physical plant of the funeral home," said Michael D. Sharkey, a funeral director in Wisconsin for 30 years. "They do not do that in Illinois. When something goes wrong, nobody notices. That comes as a surprise to some people."
     Sharkey is uniquely situated to compare the two states, being the legal representative of both the Wisconsin Funeral Directors Association and the Illinois Funeral Directors Association, as well as the associations in South Dakota and Minnesota, where he lives.
     "The other big difference is that in Wisconsin, all regulatory actions are taken by the DSPS — the Department of Safety and Professional Services, all under one roof," he said. "In Illinois, the comptroller regulates crematories and the [Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation] regulates funeral directors, two separate agencies."
     Which leads to buck-passing.

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