The Dallas County Commission has clarified a new policy concerning indigent burials.

Back in November, the commission voted to increase the amount the county will pay for indigent burials from $40 to $500.

The $40 was a holdover from the early 1900s and out-of-line with what neighboring counties are doing, Probate Judge Kim Ballard said at the time.

Since enacting the change, the commission has received two invoices from funeral homes for $500 apiece. One of them was for a funeral that cost more than $7,000, of which the family had already paid a large portion.

Dallas County attorney John Kelly said the revised $500 policy was designed for people “who had no ability or means to pay anything.” For that amount of money, these burials would likely have to be cremations, Kelly said.

“We could see that they were buried for that amount,” Kelly said. “[The intention was] not that people could submit $500 for charges.”

Ballard said the policy was for the homeless or people with no estate at all and no relatives to help with burials.

“If we don’t put something like this in place, every funeral would be … $500,” Ballard said.

Under the clarified policy, the county will provide up to $500 for necessary charges for indigent burials. Any amount family or friends pay toward a service will reduce the county’s contribution.

In other business, the Dallas County Commission took the following actions:

The commission decided to vacate County Road 888 at International Paper. Ballard said IP owns both sides of the road. No one spoke against the move during an earlier public hearing.

“It’s really a road to nowhere as far as the public is concerned,” Ballard said. “It will not affect anybody other than IP.”

The commission also voted to pay a $600 claim by an Orrville resident who had sewer and plumbing issues. Commissioner Larry Nickles said the source of the problem was in the county’s right-of-way.

The commission voted to declare the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of both Christmas and New Year’s weeks as holidays. The Dallas County Tax Collector’s Office will still be open on Dec. 31, which is one of that offices’s busiest days of the years as people pay property taxes.