Pricing boys out of scouting
As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exits scouting, the cost to be in scouting is skyrocketing. It is unclear how much these things relate.
Since this particular cost that is rising is the fee paid to the national organization, there may be a connection. The national organization has laid off 36 employees. The Utah Councils have also cut staff. In Hawaii their two councils are merging. In Arizona they are elimanating one of the sub-council districts, although since that was a non-geographic one specifically for troops sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was problematic.
The sticker shock issue is that the cost to register as assessed by the national organization has gone from $33 per boy to $60 per boy. Youth leader charges have gone from $33 to $36. The whole way it is being done shows lack of foresight or outright deception on the part of scout leadership.
Why do I say deceptions? A high percentage of cub packs, and some scout troops, operate on a school year calendar. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operated on a calendar year calendar, although entrance and move up was more staggered. The catch is that the 18th birthday cut off for eagle applies to all.
Since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints covered all the costs of scouting for boys, funding activities through the budget, paying all dues, absorbing the cost of patches and awards, and so on, with the lone exception of not absorbing all the cost of summer camp and not paying for uniforms ($95 shirts), the cost for members of the Church leaving to troops with other sponsorors may be particularly shocking.
However due to the way most packs and many troops operate and budget the shock involved is even more pronounced. Many packs and even some troops only meet August or even September through June. The troops will generally go to summer camps, and many packs will do summer day camps, but they will not hold regular summer meetings. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the pattern was to seek to meet all summer long, but some areas you had lower attendance due to traveling.
These packs will recruit new members in August and September, and tell people the annual cost, set budgets and the like. Since the $60 is only the national cost, and there are also council fees, awards, pins and patches fees, and unit operating costs, as well as other costs like summer camp, subscribing to boy's life, and buying a uniform and a scout handbook, the total cost per boy can run $200 or more.
These costs were presented to the families at enrollment time in August or September, or in some cases earlier. From having read reaction to this change, some packs and troops snuck in extra costs to cover a possible rise in the national fee. The problem is, even those with that much foresight usually didn't have a clue the rise would be this high, and so they are still scambling. They either have to cut activities or ask the families for more money than they initially told them.
Why is this huge increase in cost coming. That is a question that no one feels the national organization is transpaprent enough about. The claim that national is trying to foist on locals is it is being driven by higher insurance costs. Why do te boy scouts have a high insurance cost?
Well, the simplest answer is they annoyed their insurers by suing some of them for not covering some law suit pay outs. The whole thing boils down to questions about settlements for sexual assault law suits. There are probably for the boy scouts lots of non-sexual injury related law suits, but those often do not go very far.
If the sexual assault lawsuits are the key to the rise in cost, than the late announcment is due to either deliberate deception or grosse mismanagement. The reason the sexual assualt law suits are bad now is that New Jersey and New York and more recently California and Arizona have created open season for any lawsuit ever, with no regard to statues of limitation. However the New York and New Jersey laws were passed late last year, so the writing was on the wall. Even the California law was known to be in progress.
Others thing the shrining due to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disolving thousands of troops is a key factor. I am sure this is a factor, but this was announced in May 2018, so it does not explain why this change could not have been announced by July or even April 2019 so budgets could be set.
Other signs of what is going on here is that BSA has not consolidated its Utah councils into one. It has not consolidated any councils at all in the wake of the change outside Hawaii. They seem to have the hope that lots of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would keep their boys in scouting. My general impression is that is not happening anywhere near as often as BSA hoped.
Why is it not happening? Lots of reasons. First, the Church is not just leaving scouting, they are rolling out a new children and youth program with weekly meetings. This means there is not a freeing of time to continue scouting. Since individual families were not directly paying for the Church being in scouting, there is also no freeing of funds.
Some number of members do not like the liberal trends in scouting. Others do not like the trends in merit badge requirments. Others dislike the feel of scouting. Many others feel it was once a good organization, but has shifted too much into being an organization with overpaid professionals running it, instead of the true lovers of the outdoors like Dan Beard and a few others who ran it in the early 20th-century.
There are a few other issues involved here. I have read that even last year Friends of Scouting donations from members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were down more than 50%. I know many members were turned off by the Tillerson/Gates changes to leader eligibility and even more were outraged at accepting transgenderism. Allowing in girls was for some the last straw, for others controlled enough that it was a non-issue, but for some more of us rushed. However my understanding is FOS money goes to the council not the national organization, so this may notbe the cause.
Why do I think including girls was rushed? I think this because women and men are different. If BSA wanted to bring in girls the right way, they should have created some new merit badges with girls in mind. They could have made these open to both boys and girls, but should have shown a willingness to create girl specific content. They also should have developed more than just saying we will have boy and girl specific dens and boy and girl specific troops. They should have at least rolled out a set of activities and forums for boy/girl interaction. At least as a potential for local units. Yes, I am saying that underthe new reality creating BSA dances makes sense.
I have to wonder if one reason for the fee increase is that the level that girls have joined the program is less than the people who developed that plan hoped.
I also have to wonder if it is because the Gates/Tillerson plan to get more corporate donations failed. Gates and Tillerson told us if we caved on allowing sexually active homosexuals as scout leaders that we would gaurantee more comporate donations. They forgot three problems with this plan.
First, the scouts still mandate all scouts believe in God. Radical liberals are not just focused on the LGBT issue, even if that is what they proclaim the most. As long as the scouts exclude athiests, than many leftists will exclude them. In the wake of Chick-fil-A being excluded by government action from the San Antonio Airport and facing protests at the University of Kansas and total excludion from Rider University because it donates to groups such as the Salvation Army, corporate interests have incentive to avoid donationg to groups leftists hate.
Second, the Gates/Tillerson cave, especially so shortly after the all boys but no LGBT leaders compromise, has undoudtedly driven off some conservative contributors. Gates/Tillerson also forgot that keeping the contributors you have is more important than opening yourself up to more contributors.
Third, even those who do not have issues with the exclusion of athiests may have issues with BSA allowing sponsoring organizations to set their own criteria on membership and leaders. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and probably the Catholic Church, the three Southern Baptists congregations left, some portion of the UMC troops, and others have held to a biological definition of membership.
Another factor is that the effects of the law suits are not just direct cost of hiring lawyers and paying settlements or judgements. People who donate to youth causes do not want their money going to court settlements. A key website used to track donation effectiveness has for years flagged BSA as an organization that pays huge abuse settlements. This may or may not be a fair flagging, but it probably discourages some potential donors. The new coverage on the suits and settlements and various reporting on the perversion files, including some that is overly sensational or antagonistic to the BSA for reasons of Kellerism, has probably also hurt.
There are probably two more factors at play here. One is that the Trump tax reform has made there less incentive for some people to donate money to non-profits. How much this has actually changed behavior is hard to say, and how much of the potentially effected behavior was going to BSA I have no idea, but it may have a place in the calculus. Also, the reforms by wiping exemption for many locals taxes, have possibly tightened belts in states like New York, and New York has historically been a huge part of BSA with often having some of the highest rates of youth participation in the country.
The last is a marked decline in BSA membership. The cause of this is very complex and hard to figure. There is I believe fewer youths today than 10 years ago, but most of the decline is due to other factors. Some say sports are a big competitor. However social media and smart phones may be an even bigger one.
So while the sex abuse lawsuit and the exodus of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from scouting are causes of the higher cost, they are not the only ones. There are probably even factors that I have not analyzed.
Since this particular cost that is rising is the fee paid to the national organization, there may be a connection. The national organization has laid off 36 employees. The Utah Councils have also cut staff. In Hawaii their two councils are merging. In Arizona they are elimanating one of the sub-council districts, although since that was a non-geographic one specifically for troops sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was problematic.
The sticker shock issue is that the cost to register as assessed by the national organization has gone from $33 per boy to $60 per boy. Youth leader charges have gone from $33 to $36. The whole way it is being done shows lack of foresight or outright deception on the part of scout leadership.
Why do I say deceptions? A high percentage of cub packs, and some scout troops, operate on a school year calendar. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operated on a calendar year calendar, although entrance and move up was more staggered. The catch is that the 18th birthday cut off for eagle applies to all.
Since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints covered all the costs of scouting for boys, funding activities through the budget, paying all dues, absorbing the cost of patches and awards, and so on, with the lone exception of not absorbing all the cost of summer camp and not paying for uniforms ($95 shirts), the cost for members of the Church leaving to troops with other sponsorors may be particularly shocking.
However due to the way most packs and many troops operate and budget the shock involved is even more pronounced. Many packs and even some troops only meet August or even September through June. The troops will generally go to summer camps, and many packs will do summer day camps, but they will not hold regular summer meetings. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the pattern was to seek to meet all summer long, but some areas you had lower attendance due to traveling.
These packs will recruit new members in August and September, and tell people the annual cost, set budgets and the like. Since the $60 is only the national cost, and there are also council fees, awards, pins and patches fees, and unit operating costs, as well as other costs like summer camp, subscribing to boy's life, and buying a uniform and a scout handbook, the total cost per boy can run $200 or more.
These costs were presented to the families at enrollment time in August or September, or in some cases earlier. From having read reaction to this change, some packs and troops snuck in extra costs to cover a possible rise in the national fee. The problem is, even those with that much foresight usually didn't have a clue the rise would be this high, and so they are still scambling. They either have to cut activities or ask the families for more money than they initially told them.
Why is this huge increase in cost coming. That is a question that no one feels the national organization is transpaprent enough about. The claim that national is trying to foist on locals is it is being driven by higher insurance costs. Why do te boy scouts have a high insurance cost?
Well, the simplest answer is they annoyed their insurers by suing some of them for not covering some law suit pay outs. The whole thing boils down to questions about settlements for sexual assault law suits. There are probably for the boy scouts lots of non-sexual injury related law suits, but those often do not go very far.
If the sexual assault lawsuits are the key to the rise in cost, than the late announcment is due to either deliberate deception or grosse mismanagement. The reason the sexual assualt law suits are bad now is that New Jersey and New York and more recently California and Arizona have created open season for any lawsuit ever, with no regard to statues of limitation. However the New York and New Jersey laws were passed late last year, so the writing was on the wall. Even the California law was known to be in progress.
Others thing the shrining due to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disolving thousands of troops is a key factor. I am sure this is a factor, but this was announced in May 2018, so it does not explain why this change could not have been announced by July or even April 2019 so budgets could be set.
Other signs of what is going on here is that BSA has not consolidated its Utah councils into one. It has not consolidated any councils at all in the wake of the change outside Hawaii. They seem to have the hope that lots of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would keep their boys in scouting. My general impression is that is not happening anywhere near as often as BSA hoped.
Why is it not happening? Lots of reasons. First, the Church is not just leaving scouting, they are rolling out a new children and youth program with weekly meetings. This means there is not a freeing of time to continue scouting. Since individual families were not directly paying for the Church being in scouting, there is also no freeing of funds.
Some number of members do not like the liberal trends in scouting. Others do not like the trends in merit badge requirments. Others dislike the feel of scouting. Many others feel it was once a good organization, but has shifted too much into being an organization with overpaid professionals running it, instead of the true lovers of the outdoors like Dan Beard and a few others who ran it in the early 20th-century.
There are a few other issues involved here. I have read that even last year Friends of Scouting donations from members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were down more than 50%. I know many members were turned off by the Tillerson/Gates changes to leader eligibility and even more were outraged at accepting transgenderism. Allowing in girls was for some the last straw, for others controlled enough that it was a non-issue, but for some more of us rushed. However my understanding is FOS money goes to the council not the national organization, so this may notbe the cause.
Why do I think including girls was rushed? I think this because women and men are different. If BSA wanted to bring in girls the right way, they should have created some new merit badges with girls in mind. They could have made these open to both boys and girls, but should have shown a willingness to create girl specific content. They also should have developed more than just saying we will have boy and girl specific dens and boy and girl specific troops. They should have at least rolled out a set of activities and forums for boy/girl interaction. At least as a potential for local units. Yes, I am saying that underthe new reality creating BSA dances makes sense.
I have to wonder if one reason for the fee increase is that the level that girls have joined the program is less than the people who developed that plan hoped.
I also have to wonder if it is because the Gates/Tillerson plan to get more corporate donations failed. Gates and Tillerson told us if we caved on allowing sexually active homosexuals as scout leaders that we would gaurantee more comporate donations. They forgot three problems with this plan.
First, the scouts still mandate all scouts believe in God. Radical liberals are not just focused on the LGBT issue, even if that is what they proclaim the most. As long as the scouts exclude athiests, than many leftists will exclude them. In the wake of Chick-fil-A being excluded by government action from the San Antonio Airport and facing protests at the University of Kansas and total excludion from Rider University because it donates to groups such as the Salvation Army, corporate interests have incentive to avoid donationg to groups leftists hate.
Second, the Gates/Tillerson cave, especially so shortly after the all boys but no LGBT leaders compromise, has undoudtedly driven off some conservative contributors. Gates/Tillerson also forgot that keeping the contributors you have is more important than opening yourself up to more contributors.
Third, even those who do not have issues with the exclusion of athiests may have issues with BSA allowing sponsoring organizations to set their own criteria on membership and leaders. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and probably the Catholic Church, the three Southern Baptists congregations left, some portion of the UMC troops, and others have held to a biological definition of membership.
Another factor is that the effects of the law suits are not just direct cost of hiring lawyers and paying settlements or judgements. People who donate to youth causes do not want their money going to court settlements. A key website used to track donation effectiveness has for years flagged BSA as an organization that pays huge abuse settlements. This may or may not be a fair flagging, but it probably discourages some potential donors. The new coverage on the suits and settlements and various reporting on the perversion files, including some that is overly sensational or antagonistic to the BSA for reasons of Kellerism, has probably also hurt.
There are probably two more factors at play here. One is that the Trump tax reform has made there less incentive for some people to donate money to non-profits. How much this has actually changed behavior is hard to say, and how much of the potentially effected behavior was going to BSA I have no idea, but it may have a place in the calculus. Also, the reforms by wiping exemption for many locals taxes, have possibly tightened belts in states like New York, and New York has historically been a huge part of BSA with often having some of the highest rates of youth participation in the country.
The last is a marked decline in BSA membership. The cause of this is very complex and hard to figure. There is I believe fewer youths today than 10 years ago, but most of the decline is due to other factors. Some say sports are a big competitor. However social media and smart phones may be an even bigger one.
So while the sex abuse lawsuit and the exodus of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from scouting are causes of the higher cost, they are not the only ones. There are probably even factors that I have not analyzed.
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