By: Chris Gilson, cgilson@cbs4qc.com
State budget woes are causing big problems for Illinois funeral homes.
As of Monday, Illinois no longer has funds to help low income families pay for funerals. And local funeral directors said it'll add more stress for folks already hurting.
"They're dealing with the grief of the loss and then to know they have no funds to bury the person to provide service for them, even more so the service they would like to provide for them," Steve Pressly of Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home said.
Pressly said as long as he's been a funeral director the state had given more than a 1,000 dollars to help cover the costs for each funeral.
But Pressly said he isn't surprised to see the cuts since all agencies are hurting.
"I mean obviously we deal with people when they've experienced death, loss. Think about all the agencies in the State of Illinois that are helping people that are still living, the agencies aren't being reimbursed," he said.
Pressly isn't turning low income families away, but he said the state owes him 23,000 dollars for services since 2010.
And he doesn't expect to get the money back anytime soon.
"It's going to take a big fix and we as funeral directors realize that and it's kind of scary. The State of Illinois is not in good shape," he said.
Pressly said families could go to the county for money, but he said it won't be as much as the state used to give.
