Grounds Maintenance Worker - Catholic Cemeteries

Diocese of St. Augustine

Grounds Maintenance Worker– Catholic Cemeteries (FLSA: Non‑Exempt)

Reports to:

Grounds Foreman
• Grade 103
• Status Type:
Full Time

Grounds Maintenance personnel work in a team environment maintaining the cemetery grounds and buildings, ensuring that they are safe, clean, and aesthetically appealing with a focus on continuous improvement. Responsibilities include preparing graves and burial work (installing vaults, concrete crypts, and urns), sodding, seeding, fertilizing, monument and marker setting, operating equipment, and performing other duties as assigned.

• Regular attendance is essential with availability for Saturday internments when necessary.
• Ensures that the maintenance log/checklist of duties (daily, weekly, quarterly, yearly) as established by the Foreman are completed in a timely manner, ready for inspection.
• Attends weekly meetings with the Foreman and maintenance team to plan priorities and ensure timely completion of all issues.
• Maintains all aspects of cemetery grounds and buildings, including trimming, edging, mowing, pesticide and herbicide applications, pruning, weeding, planter bed maintenance, trash pickup, and light custodial work.
• Cleans mausoleums, statues, interior and exterior glass, and vacuums carpets.
• Maintains a level of personal grooming and appearance befitting a Catholic interment environment (trimmed hair and beard, serviceable work shirts and trousers, and display of diocesan badges).
• Prep work such as digging, setting up graves, teardown, tamping, and landscaping for casket and cremation internment services, including operation of shoring, boards, lowering devices, pumps, and other graveside amenities.
• Ensures burial services and memorial placements are completed accurately, timely, and in accordance with policies and procedures.
• Follows all safety rules and regulations, reporting concerns to the Foreman.
• Works at multiple locations within Catholic Cemeteries.
• Responds to work orders in a timely manner.
• Locates and marks graves, foundations, mausoleum crypts, and lawn‑level memorials.
• Assists visitors with locating gravesites in a caring and professional manner, using cemetery maps and internment records.
• Safely transports human remains, lowers a casket, and opens/closes grave, crypt, or niche.
• Safely operates all cemetery equipment (excavators, vault carriers, dump trucks, hand and ride lawnmowers, etc.).
• Mixes and pours concrete to construct foundations for grave monuments; sets lawn‑flush markers per cemetery rules.
• Affixes appliques and vases to crypt or niche fronts using appropriate fastening techniques.
• Repairs and performs preventative maintenance on tools and equipment, and communicates equipment needs to the Foreman.
• Ensures the maintenance building is clean, safe, and that tools, chemicals, paints, and industrial liquids are properly stored and labeled.
• Performs seeding, sodding, fertilizing, weed control, planting, pruning, riding and hand mowing, insect control, and cemetery opening/closing when necessary.
• Performs other related duties as assigned by the supervisor.

• Respect, promote, and accommodate the mission, moral and social teachings, doctrines, and laws of the Roman Catholic Church.
• Maintain a high level of attention to grounds maintenance and repair in terms of quality, detail, and pride in workmanship.
• Work effectively in a team environment.
• High school diploma or equivalent is preferred.
• Ability to operate hand and ride lawnmowers, trimmers, chainsaws, and knowledge of irrigation procedures and sprinkler repair is preferred.
• Two years of experience in groundskeeping or landscaping is preferred.
• Consistently demonstrate a positive, friendly, respectful, and caring attitude toward colleagues, the public, and all served.
• Successfully pass the required criminal background check prior to employment and maintain a satisfactory background check.

Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and…