Registration: from when to when???

[Phibbles]

Forgive me for using you as a personal google search, but I have a question I just can't find the answer too. And I know someone here will have the answer.

 

When our scouts renew their registration in September, are they paying for the year they are in or for the next year?

 

We register in September, but the pack doesn't actually use that registration money to re-charter till March. So when they pay "the bill" in March is it paying for the year that we are half way through or paying for the next year of scouting?

 

So if a scout or scouter didn't want to continue next year, would their membership be defunct in September? March? June?

 

I am very confused and our new treasurer has no idea...

[jamist649]

Our unit (and I thought every unit, but I guess I could be wrong)recharters in December or January for the upcoming year. We collect dues in November/December and pay the fees in January. Charters usually run from January 1 to December 31st.

[Twocubdad]

Short answer: don't sweat it, it doesn't really matter.

 

Long answer: Cub Scout packs tend to operate along with the school year. Rechartering, however, can occur at anytime during the calendar year. In our council, each district recharters in a different month, just to spread out the work load for the council registrar. Both of which are separate from the council's fiscal year, with matches the calendar year.

 

A new Scout joining your pack in September would pay a pro-rated membership fee of $8.75 to cover the seven months Sept-March. That March, he would pay the full $15 registration fee and be registered for the next full year. (The cost of Boys' Life works the same way.)

 

But let's say that the next September he decides not to continue for a second year. Yes, his registration in the BSA would still be in force through the next March. And no, you're not going to get any money back. Of course, most packs charge additional pack dues on top of what goes to national. Whether or not the pack wants to refund any of the pack dues is up to the pack committee.

 

The easiest way to make sense of this all is to charge pack dues along with the program year, Sept. to Sept. In Sept. you collect both pack and national dues, but the pack simply holds the national dues until recharter time in March. Except for the pack treasurer, as far as anyone knows, the pack's year coincides with the school year.

 

Now if you are a Boy Scout troop, it's easier to align the troop fiscal year to match up with when you recharter, which is what our troop does. Because Boy Scout troops meet all year and the beginning and end of the troop fiscal year doesn't matter. We recharter in February. We tell everyone troop and national dues are payable Jan.1 (just to give us time to get everything in). We collect dues in December (and usually into January) then Feb. 1 write a check to the council for recharter.

 

As I said, unless you're the treasurer or committee chairman, just pretent everything runs September to September and forget about it.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[ScoutNut]

>>"We register in September, but the pack doesn't actually use that registration money to re-charter till March."

[Pack212Scouter]

Short answer is they pay in advance. In the case of our Pack, dues cover through the next annual year (we recharter in January), but you pay them the previous September. Some Packs split the dues for new Scouts, so you may pay for Sept thru recharter and then for the next recharter year. This is why we charge our regular dues for new Scouts, but existing Scouts can pay an "early bird" dues which discount the 4-5 months that they already are covered.(This message has been edited by pack212scouter)

[moosetracker]

Yep, if you think of a scout who registers in the middle of the charter year. They pay only a portion of the registration dues. The closer it gets to the end of the charter, the less they need to pay.. That means that are paying for the remainder of the year before the new rechartering time.. They are not paying for some portion of the past year when they were not a member.. So yes pay for future, not for past.

[Phibbles]

Thank you all...I think I understand.

 

And so you know, the treasurer just took over the position and is trying to wrap her head around the way it works. She was hoping I would know, since I have past scout experience. But I didn't really have to worry about funds when I was a scout, so it is all "new to me" now.

[Scouting Mom]

Every pack, every district and every council does this differently...

 

Our district used to recharter in March, now we recharter in December. Our pack charges a pro-rated amount in September for new scouts and then charges everyone, old and new, in late November to cover the next year from January 1 to December 31. When we rechartered in March, we charged everyone in February. Between September and November, we lose a few, when our recharter was in March, we lost even more. No point in rechartering people who aren't attending and no fair for the pack to have to pay recharter fees for people who dropped. If they've paid a year's worth, they aren't going to tell you that their kid got bored after 2 months and they don't need to be on the recharter. They are going to tell you to keep them on the books (they have already paid for it afterall), because they will work on changing the boy's mind. So the pack pays the recharter fees and the boy never comes back. When we changed the recharter date (a decision made by our council, which we had no control over) we had to decide if we were going to continue pro-rating for those joining in September or collect for the remainder of the year PLUS the new year. We decided that even though those joining in September are only paying up front for 3-4 months membership and then paying again in November, we decided that was a better option than putting them in sticker shock by charging them for 16 months up front.

 

Some other packs opted to risk the sticker shock in the interest of not begging for money twice. One pack I know has always collected in September for everyone old or new. Problem with that is, that when they recharter they are paying recharter fees for a whole year, but the families have only given them 8 months worth of dues. This also back-fired on them when they failed to hold the recharter money in reserve until recharter time and then had no money for it.

 

At least the way we do it, we are taking in the money within a couple of weeks of when we have to pay it out, so we have it readily available.

[Pack212Scouter]

We are one of the ones that charge for the recharter up front. Issues such as Scouting Mom outlined can be avoided by making sure that you budget for the initial charter fee for the Scouts plus the recharter fee. We use a seperate "account" with our bank to hold recharter funds in until recharter time. That way it can't be spent.