Back in June the national fees were set at $72 for youth and $45 for adults. Also set at that time were guidelines that local councils could charge up to that amount for insurance or programming fees during recharter. Our council has set recharter at $168 ($72 national and $96 local) for youth and $132 ($45 national and $87 local) for adults.
They are clearly out of line with national policy. The council executive has been alerted of this both back in June and again this week. He isn’t budging. What can be done? For my family of five, we will be billed beyond the national limit a total of $156. For my pack of roughly 50 scouts and 12 registered adults, we are over billed almost $1800.
The council that shares a border with our council is only charging an extra $6 for local insurance costs and nothing for programming. Compared to that council, our pack would pay over $5000 less in fees.
There probably isn’t much you can do. My council also charges more for Scouts than double the National fees. For adults we only pay the $45 National fee. My Council allows anyone to request financial assistance. Only a small number of people at the Council know who requested assistance. The unit never finds out.
The Council has also frozen the fees for 3 years, absorbing any National feel increases and they do not charge the $25 new member fee, instead taking that from the Council portion of the fees.
Our Scout Exec has said he must run the Council so that the budget balances. This requires the Council to charge more than the BSA “allows.” To help reduce the impact of the change, the Council no longer does Family Friends of Scouting. Families are told the cost of Scouting to the Council and National upfront and are not asked to contribute more during the year. Most families in the Council prefer this model to the Family Friends of Scouting model.
