For nearly a century, the city of Bend has maintained the 13-acre cemetery near the base of Pilot Butte — a quiet, tree-lined final resting place for more than 6,800 people.

With revenue generated from burial fees and lot sales, the city has mowed the grass, dug graves, coordinated with funeral homes and helped visitors find their loved ones’ headstones at Pilot Butte Cemetery.

But now, faced with a budget shortfall that’s forcing the city to cut staff and services in several departments, officials are starting to talk about selling the cemetery and handing off those responsibilities to a private owner.

“There was a time when municipalities were looked at to provide all sorts of services, and the time for that has changed with the funding and expectations,” said Bend Street Division Manager Hardy Hanson. “We just can’t provide all these services.”

The Street Division, which also takes care of pavement repairs, landscape maintenance and irrigation in city right-of-ways, and construction of accessible curb ramps, manages the cemetery.

When the city was smaller, Hanson said, it was easier to handle the cemetery work along with everything else. But as the city has grown, so has the division’s list of responsibilities.

At the same time, the cost of maintaining the cemetery has gone up and revenues have dropped off. In the 2006-07 fiscal year, the cemetery brought in $111,294 from burials, lot sales and maintenance fees. This year, officials expect to make just $48,800 from those sources, but will spend $123,230 to keep the cemetery running, according to city budget documents.

Officials said part of the reason for the gap is the growing trend of people opting for cremations rather than standard burials. In 2006, the cemetery had 52 burials, but that number dropped to 39 in 2007 and 37 in 2008, said Public Works Director Paul Rheault.

Bobbie Rader, who has worked as the cemetery’s sexton since 1991, said she’s noticed the change over the past several years. Rader oversees maintenance at the cemetery

“Everybody’s going cremation these days,” she said. “(The number of burials) is slowing down, but it is for all the cemeteries, not just the cities’. They say it’s a dying business.”

And because the cemetery has been operating for so many years — Rader said the oldest gravestone dates to 1903 and the city started running the facility in 1913 — the number of available plots has been steadily declining. Hanson said the cemetery has 460 plots left for full burials, though the capacity could be increased if more people opt for cremations.

To make up for the funding shortfall, the city has dipped into the cemetery fund’s reserves and scaled back on staffing. Rader, who was once the cemetery’s only full-time employee, now works only a few days a week, and she has less help than she used to from temporary workers. Hanson said the city sometimes uses inmate work crews from the Deschutes County jail to help with landscaping and other maintenance, but that still costs the city about $100 per hour.

Hanson said the city wants to do a good job keeping up the cemetery, which is home to graves of several prominent residents from Bend’s early history — many of the same names that are now on signs for streets, parks and other landmarks. But he said officials are running out of places to find funding, so selling it would probably be the best option.

So far, Hanson said he’s only had a few preliminary talks with potential buyers looking for more information about the cemetery. He said he didn’t want to comment on the specifics of those conversations or who they were with, but said he’s hopeful that a deal could be made in the future.

Hanson said the city isn’t sure yet how much the cemetery could sell for.

If Bend is able to sell Pilot Butte Cemetery, it won’t be the first city to do so in recent days. Just this week, Klamath Falls sold its 30-acre cemetery for $250,000 to a family-run funeral home, Davenport’s Chapel Of The Good Shepherd. William F. Davenport, the business’ funeral director, said the city approached a handful of funeral homes in the community about purchasing the property because it was costing too much to maintain. He said other cities looking to sell a cemetery would probably turn to private funeral homes that might be interested in locating their operations on the cemetery grounds.

There are 36 city-run cemeteries in the state, according to the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board.

Hanson said he believes selling Pilot Butte Cemetery is in the best interest of both the city and the people who opt to use it.

“I think it could be as good or better service with somebody who is really dedicated (to running the cemetery) — to us, it’s a secondary function,” he said. “I suppose there was a time where it was needed, but that time has passed.”