The slender figure of Guy Finch, zipped in a body bag after he died alone in his Minneapolis apartment, arrived in funeral director Todd Maisch's hands last month.  

State lawmakers now are looking at replacing burial with less-expensive cremation, a switch that could save counties up to $2 million a year.

"Burials have changed," said Jim Mulder, executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties, which is backing the proposal. 

"The use of crematoriums has increased tremendously. This will put us more in tune with the fundamental mores that we all have in dealing with death," Mulder said. 

The proposal doesn't specify what counties are to do with any unclaimed ashes. 

Nationwide, cremation is used in a little over a third of all deaths, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. In Minnesota it's slightly higher, at 42 percent. 

Families who object to cremation still could request a traditional burial under Minnesota's proposal. But for people like Finch, who have no family to speak for them, a county could choose cremation. 

Hennepin County, which comprises Minneapolis and several large suburbs, spent $1.2 million for funeral assistance last year. Ramsey County spent $376,000. In the majority of cases in both counties, family members are involved. 

The average cost of a simple cremation with no visitation or funeral is $1,792; a simple burial costs about $2,323, plus whatever the cemetery charges. 

Legislation in Kentucky would have allowed the state's most populous county to cremate unclaimed bodies, but the Senate voted the bill down last month. Kentucky funeral directors opposed the change, and some in Minnesota have their doubts about the proposal in St. Paul. 

"I would feel very uncomfortable with it," said Ken Peterson, president of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association. 

Even when family can't be found, a relative could show up later, Peterson said. "If you don't know what they wanted and you bury the person, you can always disinter. If you cremate, you can't re-create the body to bury it." 

Jim Albinson's family owns Albin Chapel in Eden Prairie, where Finch's body was prepared for burial. Finch was 83 when he was found dead in his apartment from natural causes. His body wound up at Albin Chapel after three weeks in the Hennepin County morgue as authorities searched fruitlessly for family members. 

His body was laid to rest on a mild spring day, leaving Maisch feeling like he had helped someone. "I was one of the only people that saw him before he was buried. I treated him with respect," he said. "He was important, too, and deserves the respect that everybody else does."

As part of a program that arranges burial for those who die poor, Maisch bathed Finch's body, dressed it in donated khaki slacks, a white dress shirt and plaid sports coat and placed it in a simple wooden casket. Two days later, he rode with the casket on its 12-mile journey to a cemetery, then helped carry it to a waiting grave.. 

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