Ms Lovell is continuing to call for the board of the cemeteries trust to be replaced with an administrator.

It's a call that has been echoed by Bendigo funeral director Simon Mulqueen, who believes the RPCV board members should resign.

"If the board is saying the CEO acted independently of them, then there's been a governance failure," Ms Lovell said, pointing to the board's initial defence of the clearing of grave adornments when news of it first broke.

Ms Lovell said the board, which is appointed by the Minister for Health under Victorian legislation, has a responsibility to act in accordance with the mission statement and values of the organisation.

In the case of RPCV, those values are "compassion, community and integrity".

"A cemetery needs to be managed very sensitively and compassionately and we've had two major policy directives in eight months that have not been in the best interests of the community," Ms Lovell said, referring to a controversy last year over a proposal by the trust to introduce "astronomical" price increases.

Mr Mulqueen, of Bendigo Funerals, labelled the cemetery's bullish enforcement of its adornment policy "a disgrace" that "could easily have been avoided with some consultation and engagement with the community".

"If occupational health and safety is the principle concern, as stated by RPCV, then they should first look at the roads, paths and lawns in its cemeteries, which could not possibly meet safety standards given their state of repair," he said.

Like Ms Lovell, he linked the current "debacle" to the cemetery trust's proposal last year to dramatically raise the price of burials and cremations.

"They should have learnt their lesson then, but here we are again, and they are creating further angst and distress in the community when in reality their job is to serve the community," he said.

"Cemeteries are not corporate assets - they are community assets - and their management should be conducted in consultation with the community."

Mr Mulqueen said there had been "a reluctance by RPCV management to engage with funeral directors, other stakeholders or the community" for some time.

He said a new trust and management was needed to enable the the community to "come together in a mutually constructive environment to co-operatively and constructively solve the issues at hand and move forward in a spirit of community, enabling us to return our cemeteries to places of reflection and peace".

Remembrance Parks Victoria chair Marg Lewis told the Bendigo Advertiser the board had organised for an independent investigation to be undertaken by the Melbourne-based Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust.

A report on the investigation, into "communications both within the organisation and between the organisation and the community", which would get to the bottom of what had gone wrong and how to fix it, was due on Wednesday, she said.

"In terms of the potential fee increase last year, the board put out a proposal for consultation and ran it for a month," Ms Lewis said.

"We had feedback that the community didn't want that proposal so the board accepted the community's view and dropped it, going back to the previous process of using only annual CPI increases."

The cemeteries had extremely high maintenance costs to cover and a difficult task in balancing community sentiment and legal responsiblity, she said.

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