Illinois Code § 3

§ 3.

Gifts and contributions - Trust funds. Any cemetery authority is hereby authorized and empowered to accept any gift, grant, contribution, payment, legacy, or pursuant to contract, any sum of money, funds, securities or property of any kind, or the income or avails thereof, and to establish a trust fund to hold the same in perpetuity for the care of its cemetery, or for the care of any lot, grave, crypt or niche in its cemetery; or for the special care of any lot, grave, crypt or niche or of any family mausoleum or memorial, marker, or monument in its cemetery. The cemetery authority shall act as trustee of all amounts received for care until they have been deposited into the trust fund established under this Section. The cemetery authority may continue to be the trustee of up to $500,000 of care funds that have been deposited into the trust fund, but the cemetery authority must retain an independent trustee for any amount of care funds held in trust in excess of that $500,000. A cemetery authority holding care funds in excess of $500,000 on the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1996 shall have 36 months to retain an independent trustee for the excess amounts held in trust; any other cemetery authority must retain an independent trustee for its care funds in excess of $500,000 as soon as may be practical. No gift, grant, legacy, payment or other contribution shall be invalid by reason of any indefiniteness or uncertainty as to the beneficiary designated in the instrument creating the gift, grant, legacy, payment or other contribution. If any gift, grant, legacy, payment or other contribution consists of non-income producing property, the cemetery authority accepting it is authorized and empowered to sell such property and to invest the funds obtained in accordance with the provisions of the next succeeding paragraph. The care funds authorized by this Section and provided for in Section 4 of this Act shall be held intact and, unless otherwise restricted by the terms of the gift, grant, legacy, contribution, payment, contract or other payment, as to investments made after June 11, 1951 the trustee of the care funds of the cemetery authority, in acquiring, investing, reinvesting, exchanging, retaining, selling and managing property for any such trust, shall exercise the judgment and care under the circumstances then prevailing, which persons of prudence, discretion and intelligence exercise in the management of their own affairs, not in regard to speculation but in regard to the permanent disposition of their funds, considering the probable income as well as the probable safety of their capital. Within the limitations of the foregoing standard, the trustee of the care funds of the cemetery authority is authorized to acquire and retain every kind of property, real, personal or mixed, and every kind of investment, including specifically but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, bonds, debentures and other corporate obligations, preferred or common stocks and real estate mortgages, which persons of prudence, discretion and intelligence acquire or retain for their own account. Within the limitations of the foregoing standard, the trustee is authorized to retain property properly acquired, without limitation as to time and without regard to its suitability for original purchase. The care funds authorized by this Section may be commingled with other trust funds received by such cemetery authority for the care of its cemetery or for the care or special care of any lot, grave, crypt, niche, private mausoleum, memorial, marker, or monument in its cemetery, whether received by gift, grant, legacy, contribution, payment, contract or other conveyance heretofore or hereafter made to such cemetery authority. Such care funds may be invested with common trust funds as provided in The Common Trust Fund Act. The net income only from the investment of such care funds shall be allocated and used for the purposes specified in the transaction by which the principal was established in the proportion that each contribution bears to the entire sum invested. (Source: P.A. 89-615, eff. 8-9-96.)