Indigent burial and cremation support in Ohio: who it actually pays

The duty sits on a township or a municipality

ORC 9.15 is headed "Burial or cremation of body at expense of township or municipal corporation", and its structure answers the question of who pays. Where the person was a legal resident of the county, the proper officers of the township or municipal corporation in which the body was found must cause it to be buried or cremated at the expense of the township or municipal corporation in which the person had legal residence at the time of death. Where the person was an inmate or patient of a county institution, had no legal residence in the state, or their residence is unknown, division (C) puts the cost on the county instead.

Two provisions in the same section are worth knowing. The statute requires a grave marker. And it states that a political subdivision is not relieved of its duty to bury or cremate a person at its expense when the body is claimed by an indigent person, with an indigent person defined as one whose income does not exceed one hundred and fifty per cent of the federal poverty line. A family with no money is not, by claiming the body, taking on a bill the subdivision would otherwise have carried.

What the state programme pays, and to whom

The reimbursement scheme lives in Ohio Administrative Code chapter 4717-17. Its own words are that the programme "shall be used to reimburse local government entities for the cost of providing burials or cremations to indigent deceased persons", and that the local government entity makes the determination of the deceased person's indigent status. This is the sentence that decides who applies: the applicant is a local government entity, not a relative.

The rule caps reimbursement at one thousand dollars for an adult and seven hundred and fifty dollars for a child, splitting the two at age twelve, with those aged twelve and over treated as adults. An application is due no later than sixty days after the burial transit permit or disposition permit is issued, payment is subject to the availability of funds, and a denial is final and does not create administrative appeal rights under ORC chapter 119.

The programme had been suspended. The board's own notice, which we read on 6 August 2026, states that it is being restored on 1 July 2026, that state fiscal year 2027 carries a $250,000 appropriation for it, and that the reimbursement application form was to be made available on 1 July 2026. Because that is both dated and finite, a local entity's ability to recover in any given year depends on the fund, not on the entitlement alone.

Where a family should actually start

The route is the township or municipal corporation of the person's legal residence at the time of death. That is the entity ORC 9.15 places the duty on, and the entity that can later apply for reimbursement. Ask for the office that handles indigent burials; in a township this is often the trustees' office, and in a municipality the clerk's or the health department's.

We are not going to tell you what Franklin County or the City of Columbus does specifically, because we could not establish it. The City of Columbus, Franklin County and the county coroner's websites all refused our requests when this site was built, and a page about money for a burial is the last place to guess at a phone number or an eligibility rule. Everything above is state law and applies across Ohio; the local layer is a question to put directly to the township or municipality.

This page is general information from the current Ohio Revised Code, the Ohio Administrative Code and the board's own published notice, read on 6 August 2026. It is not legal advice, and it is not a benefits application. For questions about the reimbursement programme itself, the Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors is at 77 South High Street, 16th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215-6108, (614) 466-4252.