metro >> on the cover Resting In Peace? from page 1 cemetery, which was taken over by the adjacent Hebrew Memorial Park eight years ago. She is troubled by uneven ground, crumbling masonry, leaning headstones and sinking graves. "The feeling I was given" about upkeep, said Holtzman-Wax, "is that it's a money issue' Rabbi Boruch Levin is executive director of the Hebrew Memorial Chapel. The cem- etery and the chapel are separate arms of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, formed in 1916 as the Jewish Free Burial Society. "We've taken over a number of cem- eteries. Some had their financial house in order and some did not. The board decided that this was the right thing to do:' Levin said of the decision to take over Workmen's Circle, which had very little money in trust. Money and maintenance are perpetual concerns of cemetery boards, directors and groundskeepers. And they are the two reasons why some of Metro Detroit's oldest and smallest cemeteries find themselves in both fiscal and physical difficulty. In 1968, Michigan's legislature passed the Michigan Cemetery Regulation Act, which aimed to ensure cemetery mainte- nance in perpetuity. The act requires any new cemetery to put $25,000 (amended to $50,000 in 2008) and 15 percent of each plot sale into a property maintenance trust. However, cemeteries owned by religious institutions are exempt from regulation. And cemeteries that predate the act may never have established adequate trusts. Some synagogue-owned cemeteries did not segregate congregation and cemetery funds, and as synagogue membership dwindled, some made up budget short- falls by "borrowing" from cemetery funds, resulting in under-funded cemetery trusts. Hard Times B'nai David Cemetery on Van Dyke and East Six Mile in Detroit is, by all accounts, in the worst straits. The cemetery can hardly afford to care for its 1,200 graves. Each of the community's funeral homes reports doing the greatest number of re-interments from the 100-year-old cem- etery. Saul Chudnow of Oak Park, 15-year volunteer manager of cemetery mainte- nance, said, "In the last 10 years, I doubt we've had six burials there Chudnow did say that cemetery main- tenance expenses are coming from funds designated for perpetual care of the graves. "Some thought has been given to having one of the neighborhood cemeter- ies take care of it, but that's in the future," he said. "Our funds are not that great because our contributions are not that great." Several local cemeteries, including Novi's Oakland Hills Memorial Gardens, which maintains the B'nai Israel section, and Woodmere Cemetery on Fort and Woodmere in Detroit, which maintains a Shaarey Zedek-owned section, had their funds looted by Oklahoma speculator 12 June 9 - 2011 JN Marci Holtzman-Wax of Farmington Hills notes the new cement liner around her father's grave at Workman's Circle Cemetery. Clayton Smart. Between 2004 and 2006, Smart embezzled $70 million from 28 cemetery maintenance funds in Michigan. Smart was recently convicted and faces the rest of his life in prison because of similar cases in Michigan and Tennessee. According to David Techner, owner and funeral director of the Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, B'nai Israel "never got the promised infrastructure, such as sprinklers:' because of the losses from its perpetual-care funds. Craig Nelke, director of operations for Midwest Memorial Group, which took over all of the Michigan cemeteries looted by Smart, including Woodmere and Oakland Hills, said, "I would guess that there's no money left to take care of the property, but it will be maintained as if it had not been looted. We have an obligation to do so. "B'nai Israel is secure in its mainte- nance going forward." The Nitty-Gritty Dave Tomlinson has been with Hebrew Memorial Park for 23 years. "There are things that need to be done big time. We try to tackle as much as we can," he said." Since assuming responsibility for Workmen's Circle, Tomlinson has seen to eradicating grubs that attract burrowing moles, done masonry repairs and replaced a decrepit water filter that allowed the property's iron-rich water to stain head- stones. Workmen's Circle has concrete frames around each grave, which, in addition to costing $75 each to replace when they deteriorate, prohibit use of a lawn mower. In the summer, the weekly cost of using weed whackers to maintain the cemetery's grass is $2,500. Care for individual graves is paid for by relatives. They pay for repairs to the grave, plus either an annual maintenance fee or prepay into a perpetual-care fund. "Perpetual care is for flowers only," said Levin. "We plant about 9,000 a year."