If you’re a funeral professional in NY and you’re not paying attention to what’s happening in the NYS Legislature, it’s time to start! There are a significant number of bills with the potential to reshape how funeral service is practiced, regulated, and resourced in New York. Here’s what’s currently on the table.
WORKFORCE & LICENSURE
Bill S9112 — Licensed Funeral Arranger Act (Senate). Creates an entirely new licensure category: the “Licensed Funeral Arranger.” These individuals could perform all funeral service functions except embalming. The bill also establishes a “Registered Transporter” classification for the removal and transportation of remains. This is one of the most sweeping workforce proposals in recent memory and would fundamentally change who can legally serve families in New York. Do you think it will help or exacerbate our shortage of qualified professionals?
Bill S8152 — Funeral Directing Apprenticeships (Senate). Establishes a *four-year* apprenticeship program as an alternative pathway to funeral director licensure, eliminating the requirement to pass a formal licensing exam for those who complete the program. Graduates would qualify as licensed funeral directors, undertakers, and embalmers.
Bill A5172 — Funeral Directing Apprenticeships (Assembly). The Assembly companion to S8152, this version allows apprenticeships to range from one to four years, providing more flexibility in program design while still serving as an alternative to licensing exams.
Bill S7690 / Bill A7630 — Strengthening the Residency Program. These companion bills are intended to formalize and elevate the existing one-year residency requirement for funeral director licensure. They introduce a defined “Preceptor” role with training and conduct requirements. They also add a new 100-hour “discernment period” for mortuary science students. Students must complete this discernment period in a funeral home before they begin their third semester at mortuary school to help ensure they really want to become funeral directors.
CONSUMER PROTECTION, ENFORCEMENT & PRENEED
Bill S9233 — Bureau of Funeral Directing Enforcement Authority. Authorizes the Bureau of Funeral Directing to investigate claims brought against any person, firm, or corporation relating to moneys paid in connection with agreements for funeral merchandise or services. It also gives the Bureau explicit authority to investigate, and after due process, levy fines and sanctions on unlicensed individuals and unregistered entities that are falsely representing themselves as licensed funeral directors or registered funeral firms. Previously, families depended on the local district attorney or the state attorney general to conduct such investigations. Although this bill represents a meaningful expansion of the Bureau’s enforcement teeth, it crucially does not come with any additional funding to the bureau for the personnel needed to conduct such investigations.
Bill S6562 — Preneed Funeral Insurance. Would allow funeral directors to also become licensed agents to sell preneed life insurance policies, bringing New York in line with 48 other states. Currently, preneed funds can only be placed in trust. This bill would allow insurance as an alternative funding vehicle, capped at $20,000, with consumer protections including a prohibition on naming the selling funeral director as owner or beneficiary of the policy. This bill also removes the prohibition of earning commission on preneed sales, allowing directors to earn and keep commissions on preneed policies. There is no change to the prohibition of commission on preneed trusts.
Bill 5838 — This bill removes the exemption that allowed some religious cemeteries to sell cemetery monuments and markers, and prohibits them from disclosing or promoting employees who may sell markers outside of their role as cemetery employees. This bill is intended to protect independent monument companies, who pay taxes and are unfairly disadvantaged by religious organizations who operate tax free. The industry estimates a loss of 20-30 percent of its market share to tax-exempt cemeteries, resulting in a loss of roughly $10 million in tax revenue to the State.
TRANSPORTATION & VEHICLE OPERATIONS
Bill A8640 — Distinctive License Plates for Funeral Service Vehicles. Creates a special license plate for New York State licensed funeral homes and funeral directors, designated “Funeral Service Vehicle” with a unique design distinguishing it from standard commercial or passenger plates. The plates would be reserved for vehicles used to transport human remains, and would not be required to carry the Statue of Liberty logo. This mirrors similar programs in states like Texas and would aid in procession coordination with law enforcement.
Bill S8634 — Bus Traffic Exemption Near Houses of Worship and Funeral Homes. Excludes bus operation-related traffic regulation violations from enforcement when they occur within 100 feet of a place of worship, funeral home, or similar institution as part of participation in a ceremony or religious service. This provides practical relief for operators of buses involved in funeral processions or religious services.
Bill A4113 — Funeral Motorcades and HOV Lanes (“Nina’s Law”). Permits funeral motorcade vehicles and funeral service vehicles operated on behalf of a house of worship, funeral home, crematorium, or cemetery to use high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes regardless of the number of occupants.
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE & BURIAL ACCESS
Bill S890 — Burial Assistance Reform. Increases the minimum state burial assistance benefit to $3,000 (capped at $4,000), expands eligibility to undocumented persons who would otherwise qualify on financial need, and requires that during a declared state of emergency, applications be processed within 15 days with payment made directly to the funeral home, not as a reimbursement.
Bill A7961 — Supplemental Burial Allowance for First Responders. Extends the existing supplemental burial allowance (currently available to families of military members killed in combat) to certified first responders who died as a result of a certified World Trade Center medical condition.
Bill A4269 — School Absence for Veterans’ Funeral Honors. Allows students ages 6–16 to be excused from school for a full day when sounding “Taps” at a military honors funeral held in New York State for a deceased veteran.
DEATH CERTIFICATES & REGISTRATION
Bill S3363 — Hospice Medical Director Death Certificate Authority. Clarifies that a hospice medical director or designated physician is authorized to sign a death certificate. This directly addresses a longstanding problem for funeral directors where hospice providers in some parts of the state have been reluctant to sign, causing delays and complicating the process for families.
Bill A5706 — Death Certificates Filed with Board of Elections. Requires that death certificates be filed not only with the local registrar, but also with the county Board of Elections to help remove deceased persons from voter rolls in a timely manner. This obligation falls on the county registrar, not the funeral home.
Bill A9232 — Electronic Notarization of Documents. Expands the categories of documents that may be electronically notarized under New York State Technology Law, with downstream relevance for funeral service paperwork and end-of-life document execution.
CRIMINAL LAW
Bill A5218 — Concealment and/or Mutilation of a Human Corpse. Expands the existing crime of concealment of a human corpse to also cover mutilation, and makes the offense bail-eligible.
CREMATION
Bill S3798 — Finger Lakes Crematory Backup Retort. Finger Lakes Crematory is one of the few funeral home/crematory combos that was grandfathered when NYS legislated that cemeteries and crematories had to be independent, nonprofit organizations. As such, any changes and upgrades need to be approved in law. This bill permits the Finger Lakes Crematory in Livonia, Livingston County, to install a second retort solely for use as a backup in the event of a mechanical failure of the existing unit. The bill explicitly prohibits any expansion of overall operations.
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
Bill S15/A — Nursing Home Body Storage During Emergencies. Requires nursing homes to submit plans to the Department of Health designating on-site storage locations for the bodies of deceased residents during a declared state disaster emergency, addressing a critical gap exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funeral homes may need to coordinate with these facilities during surge events.
CORONERS
Bill S5712 — Coroner Qualifications. Requires any elected or appointed coroner who is not a licensed physician to hold credentials as a certified nurse practitioner or licensed physician assistant. This would raise the professional baseline for coroners in counties that still use the elected coroner system, potentially improving the efficiency of death investigations that affect funeral home timelines. No more funeral directors, retired doctors or other non-medical professionals allowed.
PREGNANCY & FETAL REMAINS
Bill S230 — Disposition of Fetal Remains. Addresses the disposition of fetal remains, specifically requiring that bereaved parents be informed of their option to request a fetal death report. It also gives parents the options to choose whether they wish to have remains released for burial/cremation/terramation, or if they should be disposed of as regulated medical waste.
Bill S3173 — Pregnancy Loss Reporting. Reforms how pregnancy losses are reported under public health law, replacing “fetal death” with “pregnancy loss,” removing reporting requirements for terminations of pregnancy, and clarifying which agencies are responsible — with privacy protections that may affect funeral home record-keeping obligations. This bill also defines the difference between abortion, fetal demise, stillbirth and infant death. It also establishes privacy protocols and guidelines, as well as penalties for providers who violate that privacy.
Bill A7169 — Stillbirth Protocols and Research Database. Establishes formal protocols for stillbirths and creates a stillbirth research database.
There’s a lot at play this session. Several of these bills, particularly the Licensed Funeral Arranger Act and the apprenticeship pathway proposals, represent the most significant potential restructuring of funeral service in New York in decades. Others, like the preneed insurance bill, the hospice death certificate fix, and the new Bureau enforcement authority, address problems that have been grinding away at practitioners and families for years. Worth watching closely- it seems change is afoot. Several of these bills are also explicitly tied to NYSFDA’s Task Force on Reforming Funeral Service Education. Do you agree with these reforms? Do you think they will help or hurt independent funeral homes?