Pack Dues

[dlearyous]

Our Pack recharter fees are $65 which includes registration, Boys Life, insurance, handbook, neckerchief, slide and all awards. Our recharter was in January. Our delima is what to charge when Boys join after this time period. We are a military community and have a lot of change over during the year and most boys end up transfering or joining the beginning of the school year.

 

It gets confusing when you try to take every situation into consideration, such as are they transfering and already have their gear, or are they brand new to Scouts and need it all. Then with late summer registrations you are then hitting them up again at Recharter 3-4 months later.

 

I'd like to hear how everyone else deals with this, or if you do something different.

 

 

[Cubby's Cubmaster]

We ran into this issue last year. Our pack recharters in December and pays BSA & Boy's Life dues for the next calendar year. However, we collect dues in Sept for returning scouts knowing that it takes months to get this money so we'll have it for recharter. Essentially we are collecting BSA & Boy's life dues for the next calendar year and pack dues for the school year.

 

So last year we didn't charge a different dues amount for the new scouts. The problem was that the pack "ate" those BSA & Boy's Life dues due from Sept to Dec for the current calendar year.

 

This year we are prorating BSA dues and Boy's Life for this year and a full cost for next year and telling the parents up front. So that the costs wouldn't be too high we didn't prorate the pack dues so I guess we could have charge a little more there to prorate those.

 

Hope this helps. Bottom line you need to make sure you are covering your costs. Having a good treasurer is important to avoid surprises...especially when you plan larger budget events like Blue Gold.

 

Best to you,

CC

[Pack212Scouter]

Our pack charges dues in August at the beginning of the school year. They are $10 more for new Scouts to cover BSA costs for the four months until recharter. BSA fees are waved if they are a transfer. Anyone joining through the end of the year pays full dues because of the recharter. After January, we prorate the dues. As said before any time there is a transfer from another Pack, BSA costs are waved since they are already paid.

[John-in-KC]

Gruess Gott!!!

 

All those years ago in Frankfurt and Darmstadt Military Communities... and you're up at USAREUR...

 

I would keep it fairly simple: 10 bux for BSA national and 12 for Boy's Life have true pro-rata, and there are even schedules. Your DE for the Transatlantic Council should be able to get you a copy of those.

 

Then, I'd split the year into two halves. Charge the full year rate from recharter to recharter +182, and the half year from recharter +182 to recharter.

 

I recognize there's some long term continuity challenges, but you might ask a long serving DA Civilian in Heidelberg to be your Pack Treasurer. Perhaps over time, with some fiscal history, you can refine from half-year to quarter-year.

 

I would say this: If a family expected to be there the whole year, but PCS's/ETS's before the half year, consider being gracious and remitting some portion of the unit's share.

 

I know your chartered partner is not the MILCOM or the ASG anymore, so you might ask your CC to run these ideas by your COR.

 

Does all this help?

[dlearyous]

Hallo John-in-KC, it's Stephanie from Lee's Summit!

 

Thank you for the advise (everyone). I knew we could pro-rate the registration fee and Boys Life, it was the Pack dues that had me stumped. I like the idea of splitting the year in half though, it sounds much better than trying to create our own schedule of pro-rated dues. We still provide the handbook, etc no matter when they join, so we could potentially loose money (unless they're transfering). Hopefully we can re-coup the loss through fundraisers. I'm just over thinking it and want to be sure we are fair to all families while not over burdening them.