Colorado’s funeral home operators will likely soon be required to apply for licenses after state lawmakers approved a bipartisan bill outlining the new process late Thursday.

Senate Bill 173, which still must be signed by the governor, would end Colorado’s status as the only state in the country without a licensing requirement. In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of funeral home mismanagement in Colorado, including sales of corpses, misidentified cremated remains and bodies left rotting for years.

“We’ve become the worst place in the United States for abuses, for abuse of a corpse, for scams, for unethical behavior,” said Rep. Matt Soper, a Republican from Delta and a prime sponsor of the bill.

Soper, along with Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat and another prime sponsor of the bill, held a joint press conference in March when the bill was introduced.

“What this bill is about frankly is to finally say, in Colorado, that enough is enough with tragedies stemming from funeral homes and businesses in our state,” Roberts said during a hearing for the measure.

Licenses would be required for funeral home directors, embalmers, mortuary science practitioners, crematory operators and natural reductionists.

To get a license, applicants would have to submit an application, pay a fee and get a criminal background check. Funeral directors, mortuary science practitioners and embalmers all would also be required to have graduated from an approved mortuary science school, passed relevant sections of a national board examination and had workplace learning experience of one year or longer to be approved.

The director of the Colorado Department Regulatory Agencies would develop rules for the application process.

The bill also includes a “grandfather in” option for those who are already operating funeral homes but haven’t met the new requirements, which are set to kick in in 2027. To get a provisional license, applicants must either pass a national standardized exam or show they have had 4,000 hours of experience in their field — which is estimated at about two years — pass a background check, and have a peer reviewer oversee some of their work.

Peer reviewers must be either mortuary science practitioners or work in the same field as the person being reviewed and they must be approved by the director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

The original version of the bill required 6,500 hours of work experience for a provisional license, but sponsors chose to change the mandate and create the peer review system.

Anyone who has been convicted of crimes related to operating a funeral home would be denied a license.

Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada and Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, are also prime sponsors of the legislation.

While Gov. Jared Polis hasn’t said definitively that he will sign the bill, his administration supported the legislation, which indicates it will become law.

The bill has exceptions for employees who don’t handle human remains, oversee operations or deal with finances.

Another bill being considered by the legislature, House Bill 1335 , would require the state to conduct routine inspections of funeral homes and crematories.