PeterHopkins

I think a blanket ban on shirtless Scouts would be too draconian. As has been mentioned above, do we really need to tell a 16-year-old summer camp staffer that he cannot remove his shirt while laboring on a hot day?

I've never been involved with Mic-O-Say or similar non-OA honor societies. However, the little I know f Mic-O-Say indicates it is substantially adult led. Having ceremonies in which the Scout is required (or at least expected) to be shirtless is tantamount to the adults directing the Scout to remove his shirt. Unlike aquatics activities, I don't se how having such a thing improves the Scouting program. In other words, it is unnecessary. The Scout and other youth present will make no progress toward satisfying the BSA's Mission because the shirt is removed. Undeniably, the optics of adults removing their shirts are bad. If bad optics are the best possible outcome, why are we doing it?

I would support explanatory language in the Guide to Safe Scouting in the Barrier to Abuse section (where appropriate attire is mentioned) that makes it clear that adults should never request or direct youth to remove any articles of clothing. Perhaps flush language immediately below the list of program requirement could say:

The modesty of youth members must be respected by adults at all times. Adults must refrain from requesting or demanding that youth remove any articles of clothing resulting in the youth's modesty being compromised for superfluous reasons, including participating in ceremonies or skits.

If I spent more time on it, I could improve the language. We don't want to end up with a YP violation when a den leader tells Cub Scouts to get changed to go swimming, change for dinner or remove wet socks. Common sense should rule the day; apparently it doesn't. That makes something as specific as this necessary.

I don't think "appropriate attire" should be defined. We should know it when we see it. Perhaps I'm too optimistic about that.

I've also heard that wedgies are included in the Mic-O-Say induction ritual. I don't think that belongs in Scouting.

12 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

No Mic-O-Say is not associated or recognized by BSA or the OA. They are somehow affiliated with that camp, just like other organizations are affiliated with other Scout Camps, like ROTC units, Boys & Girls clubs etc. 

Mic O Say participants are Scouts and Scouters, and the activities take place in a Scout camp. In the current bankruptcy, there is discussion of how to define a Scouting activity. It's hard for me to imagine how a Mic O Say event could fall outside that definition.

The council has a Mic O Say page on its website. That's beyond tacit approval; it's an endorsement.

The BSA would never be able to convince a court that Mic O Say activities are outside the realm of Scouting.

6 hours ago, David CO said:

BSA would have a hard time telling girls to dress more modestly, knowing that they would get an immediate outcry about body shaming.

I've been to BSA camps that require females wear one-piece swimsuits.

9 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I really think there could be a big opportunity for a centralized youth volunteer clearing house.

This a a good opportunity for someone to start a niche business. I wonder what the downside would be if they get it wrong. Suppose they give the nod to an individual who later becomes an abuser?

On 9/28/2021 at 11:09 AM, Eagle1993 said:

So, why would they delay if the end result is likely a higher payment then the current deal they could strike.  My guess is that they think by delaying, the other side will negotiate a lower settlement offer so insurance stops objecting.  If the other side was willing to wait it out, insurance would likely have to pay >>>>$ than the current settlement.

Insurance companies also make terrific use of their capital. The longer the delay, the more their capital will grow. They want to pay claims as late as possible. Even paying out somewhat more at a later date is a better deal for them than paying out earlier. 

@SiouxRanger- As someone who has provided tax and financial advice to attorneys who regularly work on a contingency-fee basis, I can say that many find it difficult to strike a balance between enjoying the fruits of their success and building a war chest for the next case. Those who can master delayed gratification end up with the most successful careers, because they can take on bigger, more complex cases an hold out to get better settlements.

I've seen such attorneys get sucked into cases that they underestimated and were unable to bankroll. It's not a pretty sight. It's worse when they have partners pressuring them to settle. Their clients end up not getting the deals they should.

Edit: Sorry, I posted this before seeing that the discussion of contingent fees was closed.

On 9/20/2021 at 9:44 PM, HelpfulTracks said:

Even Eagle projects only became required in the 1950's or 60's. (I cannot remember exactly when without looking it up)

It was the mid-1960s. 

On 9/21/2021 at 10:13 PM, SiouxRanger said:

IF, and only IF that is the case, the question becomes, why would National include clearly time-barred claimants as a class of creditors to receive some payment?  And the only answer I can come up with is that National wanted to appear that it was trying to "equitably compensate" abuse survivors.

While that is what is being said, I suspect the true obective is to have finality regarding everythig with respect to both National and the local councils. They never want to deal with the past again.

On 9/20/2021 at 2:47 PM, Muttsy said:

To your knowledge has any judge sitting on the DE bankruptcy bench ever refused to confirm a plan over creditors’ objections to non-debtor releases?

No, but the amount of bankruptcy work I've done in Delaware (and New York) is insufficient to draw a conclusion from that.

On 9/15/2021 at 11:50 AM, ThenNow said:

You want to survive Chapter 11, go to Wilmington, DE.

I work as a tax planner and consultant in Delaware. There are lots of reasons entities are formed in or redomesticate to Delaware. One of them would be the efficiency of the bankruptcy court here. It is adept at handling large, complex cases. More than 2/3 of Furtune 500 companies are Delaware entities.

The expectation of having a specific judge assigned to a bankruptcy case is not a reason to redomesticate to Delaware, and Kosnoff is smart enough to know that.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

if nothing else you’ve just proven my point: only the select elite few who are allowed access to private groups (FB) are allowed to get information while everybody else is told to go away.

I did say that I agree with your point. If this is the primary means of communicationing with the national Cub Scouting director, then we ought to see something on the BSA website that tells us so,

I wasn't trying to prove or disprove your point. I would say that you simply made it more strongly than is merited. I don't know whether there is the same level of engagement in Scouts BSA, Venturing or Sea Scouting as there is in Cub Scouting. That coulld be because there isn't such engagement, or because I am currently serving as a Cubmaster and not focused on the other programs.

Membership in the group is routinely granted upon request. They will kick out those who egregiously fail to observe the Scout Oath and Law. My uess is that the requirement to request membership is primarily to prevent those who have been kicked out form returning and to give the administrators the ability to kick people out in the first place. It is hard to imagine a group with 23,000 members being properly characterized as "select elite few".

On 9/4/2021 at 4:40 PM, yknot said:

Can you clarify anything about who was/is responsible for criminal background checks in scouting? In everything I recall, it was BSA. No CO I have ever dealt with had the resources to do that until relatively recently as part of their own youth protection initiatives. 

My pack is chartered to a Catholic church. The diocese requires a certain number of adults (based on the number of youth participants) to have separate background checks. They don't care that the BSA does background checks as well. So, some, but not all of our registered leaders have these additional background checks, and the pack has ot pay for them.

On 9/3/2021 at 7:37 PM, CynicalScouter said:

The entire Varsity program was to appease the LDS.

I agree with that statement completely. That being said, it was a great program and should have been utilized more than it was. I often thought it would work well in all-boys' high schools, particularly boarding schools.

On 9/3/2021 at 3:48 PM, CynicalScouter said:

Like right now, today, this second, if I had an idea for how to improve the Arrow of Light year, WHO would I even send that too?

1. Who is the Chair of the National Cub Scout program/lead volunteer? No answer. No way to know
2. Who is the Director of Cub Scout programing? I found a 2017 Scoutingwire article, but who knows if that's still accurate? And there is NO contact information for that person (I can GUESS it is firstname.lastname@scouting.org, but that is a GUESS) https://scoutingwire.org/meet-bsas-new-program-directors-cub-scouts-boy-scouts-venturing/
3. This website says they exist, but no names, no contact, nothing. https://www.scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/den-meeting-resources/

Your point is well taken. However, the National Director of Cub Scouting, Anthony Berger, is highly engaged with the masses. He follows the Cub Scout Volunteers group on Facebook and appears on Cub Chat Live on modt Fridays. He is often joined by Lisa Wylie, the chair of the Cub Scouting subcommittee.

Anthony engaged directly with me in comments on Facebook. I sent him a friend request, and he accepted. When I saw something a local council was doing that I thought to be particularly toxix, I sent him a private message, and he responded.

Yes, it would be ideal if one could look up these folks on the website. Not only would it be more in line with how other non-for-profits operate, it would improve the optics that now make the BSA look secretive.

The Scouter's Training Award for Roundtable (and Huddle) staff members was eliminated in 2011, when those staff members became assistant roundtable commissioners. They now may earn the Arrowhead Honor.

25 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

I don't believe he was invited into mediation.  His representation in the current RSA would be in front of the trustee for his clients.  He has begged to be deposed by the insurers.

I was speaking in general terms. If he does get invited into the mediation room, he owes it to his clients to do the best he can for them. I truly don't believe his tweets help his clients, and I also believe they hurt the Scouting Movement, something larger than the BSA. All they do is shine the spotlight on him.

A few random thoughts...

I wonder how the salary paid to James E. West, adjusted for inflation, compares to the salaries paid to recent CSEs. I don't have the data.

I read at one time that the average National League player earned roughly seven times the average American worker in 1876, and the averahe Major League playe earned roughly seven times the average American worker in 1976. When free agency came into being, the multiple imediatel shot to 70 times the average American worker. Who knows what it is now. The point is that many things in our society have changed drastically since the time of James E. West.

In the Scout Oath, we promise to do our best to obey the Scout Law. None of us are perfect. We just keep trying. We cannot judge anyone who has departed from the Scout Law. Only they know whether they did their best.

I don't like Kosnoff, because I don't think he needs to draw so much attention to himself in order to represent his clients to the best of his ability. I will give him credit for following the second point of the Scout Law with respect to his clients. However, the Bankruptcy Court and mediation rooms are the appropriate forums for him to get the best settlement possible for his clients, not Twitter, particularly given what the judge has already said about chapter 7. I think those tweets carry the potential to hurt not only the BSA's ability to recruit and retain members but also the ability of some post-BSA Scouting organization to attract members.

In the months following Roger Mosby becoming the BSA's CEO, he was photographed several times with his Silver Antelope knot sewn onto his uniform upside down. I just had to get that off my chest. In recent photos, this has been corrected.

I think that Mosby's primary role is steering the BSA out of bankruptcy and leaving it in a position to survive and rebuild. Many, including some presently dedicated to and active in the Movement, may not want that or think it is the best outcome. But it seems obvious to me that this is why they would hire someone form the business community for that job.

So, Mosby's goal can be described as

• S Guide the BSA through its bankruptcy and see it emerge in a position to rebuild
• M The BSA's emergence from bankruptcy alone will not indicate the goal has been accomplished. The local councils must also get immunity. Scouting cannot truly rebuild with local councils going through their own bankruptcies.
• A This was certainly attainable, when Mosby was hired. The hill looks steeper right now.
• R There is literally no other reason Mosby was hired, and failure to meet this goal will strangle the BSA's ability to fulfill its mission.
• T Given the number of units on calendar-year charters, it may be that this needs to happen before rechartering paperwork is due.

I think the BSA may scrap the chartered organization model altogether and have the local councils charter units. It works well for the GSUSA. If chartered organizations are held financially responsible for significant compensation to victims, it is hard to imagine continuing the system will be a realistic option.

@CynicalScouter - SOX fundamentally changed many elements of financial reporting by public companes, how such companies act and how their financial statements are audited. In some cases, the costs to become compliant were tremendous, and it was difficult for me, as a CPA, to see how the public gained a beenfit from some of the provisions. I think the net was a little wider than it needed to be.

That being said, I don't think sections 802 or 1102 have had much impact on the behavior of people. I doubt anyone in the BSA now would engage in such acts now, even if they were completely unaware of the law, and I have the same doubt that this would have happened in the past, before the law existed.

The same ype of folks who would have committed these acts before SOX will do it today. They know that what they're doing is wrong and don't need a statute to tell them that. All those sections really do is describe the punishment for those who get caught.

@CynicalScouter - Yes, I agree those two sections would apply to the BSA (or any person) engaging in those criminal acts. As I said in my comment, a non-public entity generally needs to commit a crime for Sarbanes-Oxley to apply. There is an in-between area in which something fails to rise to the level of a crime but may not be completely accurate. The financial data provided by the BSA to the Bankruptcy Court should result from a good faith effort that reflects ordinary business care and prudence. That will generally not lead to perfection.

Was your comment implying that prior to SOX, such fraudulent reporting to the Bankruptcy Court was common?

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

EVEN IF they did in the past, there's NO evidence they are doing so NOW in 2021 (and the financial data for 2019 and 2020, which is what I referenced) and in fact given that every financial document is being vetted by a) their accountants who are now post-Sarbanes-Oxley on notice the accountants can get handcuffed if they fudge numbers b) the attorneys for the claimants, I find it extremely unlikely that BSA's accounting TODAY is anything other than squeaky clean.

Very little of the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act apply to the BSA, since it is not a public company. In the non-public entity context, SOX generally applies to criminal acts and not much more than that.

The IRS expects that if a return preparer "takes a position" on a return in an area in which the law is unclear, the preparer must conclude that the position would have at least a 40% chance of surviving, if it were audited. Of course, fraudulent reporting would have a 0% chance of surviving an audit.

4 hours ago, fred8033 said:

I'm still slightly confused on how you allocate salaries by program or not in an organization such as scouting.  To be more precise, salary of directory of training?  IMHO, that's program.  Training oversight / coordination is a major focus of the council and a big contributor to program quality.  Front desk receptionist.  Most front desks deal with mostly scout leaders and new parents wanting to find the scout shop or individual signing up for things.  So, I'd allocate front desk to program.  Essentially, I'd allocate most roles (DE, advancement, training, etc) to program as that's how scouting works.  "Management" is nebulous.  Is that finances, marketing, etc? 

It must be an art to decide which is which or done per some generally accepted accounting principles. 

As you say, accounting is an art, not a science. Taxation, as a discipline, is a science that is often invaded by the art of accounting.

Management's judgement plays a role in producing accounting figures. For instance, if a bakery buys a new delivery trck, management must estimate how many years the truck will be used, what its salvage value will be and the rate at which the truck's value or usefulness will decline. All these factors will drive how much depreciation expense the bakery recognizes in its financial statements for the truck. The only thing that accounting rules require in computing depreciation expense is that a rational and systematic method be used. So, if the truck is purchased at the start of a year for $40,000, mangement estimates it will be in service for 20 years and end with no slavage value, one might conclude that recognizing $2,000 per year of depreciation is fair. However, sinced the truck will lose more value in earlier years than later years, one might find it proper to accelerate the depreciation expense by doubling the depreciation on the carrying value in the earlier years...

2021 $4,000 (40,000 x 2 / 20)

2022 $3,600 (36,000 remaining x 2 / 20)

2023 $3,240 (32,400 x 2 / 20)

2024 $2,916 (29,160 x 2 / 20)

2025 $2,624 (26,244 x 2 / 20)

2026 $2,362 (23,620 x 2 / 20)

2027 $2,126 (21,258 x 2 / 20)

2028 $1,913 (19,132 x 2 / 20)

2029 $1,722 (17,219 x 2 / 20)

2030 $1,550 (15,497 x 2 / 20)

2031 $1,395 (13,947 x 2 / 20 or 13,947 / 10 years remaining)

2032 through 2040 approximately $1,395 per year (starting with 12,552 / 9)

After you've gone through alll that trouble, you're still wrong. The truck won't actually last exactly 20 years. It will probably have some salvage value when the bakery disposes of it even if it is just scrap metal. The value of the truck is not going to decline at exactly double the rate of what a straight-line calculation would give you. Why not 150% of straight line or triple? On the bakery's 2028 balance sheet, it will show the truck with a carrying value of $17,219. Is that exactly what the truck is worth? Of course not.

Once you've scheduled out the depreciation on the truck, you need to evaluate it for impairment. The question you need to ask yourself annually is whether the truck will contribute to creation of enough business in the future to justify the carrying value. So, as of the end of 2028, will the truck create enough revenue to justify carrying it a $17,219? Perhaps that year, tyhe bakery invested in a new driverless truck and hangs on to the old one as a backup. Maybe you estimate the old truck will make approximately $5,000 of deliveries in the future. If that's your conclusion, you need to record a $12,219 impairment loss and then recalibrate your annual depreciation expenses for the truck going forward.

In accounting, we go through all this trouble to estimat how much expense to allocate to each year. Yes, it truly is an art.

In taxation, Congress either tells you how much of a depreciation deduction you can get for the truck each year or gives you two or more choices of methods you can select to calculate it. That's a science.

While the concept of allocation is easy to see with a truck, it becomes much more complicated with a human like a DE. The DE creates salary, benefits and payroll taxes. Often, a DE will have mixed responsibilities. The DE needs to support existing units, encourage creation of new units and recruit new youth members. A DE may also be tasked with making Friends of Scouting presentations or being the staff adviser for a fundraising event. Then, the DE likely does thing in connection with his or her employment like attending a presentation on the council's new health insurance plan or filling out his expense report that aren't directly related to either program or fundraising. Unless these tasks are managerial in nature, the costs associated with performing them are probably best split between program and fundraising, based on the relative amount of time spent on each. However, preparing an employee evaluation on a paraprofessional is a mangerial function.

Just like all humans, the DE will fail to precisely capture the amount of time s/he spends on every single task. So, the allocation is doomed to be wrong. What we're going for is reasonable.

I've neevr advised the BSA or a local council on this. However, I tend to favor calling support of volunteer or youth training a program expense. If a council professional spends time making sure a Wood Badge course happens, that looks like a program expense to me. The entire salary of the national director of training is likely a program expense. Similarly, that would likely be the case with people such as the national director of Cub Scouting or the national director of the Order of the Arrow. However, we can never forget that it is not the person's title that drives into which bucket the salary falls. Rather, it is the function being performed. Often, an employee will have a title and spend less than 100% of his or her time on tasks indicated by that title. For instance, does the national director of the Order of the Arrow spend any time on the OA Endowment? Well, if he does, then he's performing some fundraising functions.

Aside from dealing with Scouts and Scouters, the person at the front desk also deal with the guy who delivers water for the cooler. She directs the copy machine repair guy to where he can find the machine. She may not have any direct involvement in program delivery. Her salary is likely in the general bucket.

Finance functions are typically in the general category. Much of the Scout executrive's salary is likely in that category as well. However, s/he probably almost certainly spends time on fundraising, and that may be significant. If the Scout executive attends a Blue & Gold luncheon on Day 1 of a Wood badge course, that's program.

For most organizations, there is a giant spreadhseet that allocates all the expenses by function. Whoever puts it together can do no better than produce results constrained by the quality of the data taken into accont. In the end, someone with authority to do so judges it to be reaonable, and we move on to next year.

11 hours ago, fred8033 said:

So ... "program expenses" ... I'm not sure we're comparing apples to apples.  What is a program expense and what is not?  of the 49% salaries, what is program expense versus overhead. 

All expenses are categorized on Form 990 into one of three categories: (1)Program, (2) Management and General, and (3) Fundraising.

Program expenses are costs associated with the organization's efforts to serve its constituents and accomplish its purpose(s). A clear and obvious example would be the salary paid to a summer camp staffer.

Fundraising expenses are costs incurred in connection with soliciting donations. One of these would be the printing and mailing costs for requests to sponsor a Scout at summer camp. Another would be the costs to produce special Friends of Scouting CSPs.

Management and general expenses is the catch-all category. If it has nothing to do with program delivery or fundraising, it is management and general. An example would be fees paid to a bankruptcy attorney representing the organization.

Organizations can use either of two approaches in classifying their expenses. The first is recording at source. This is nearly impossible and rarely done. For instance, if a DE is paid monthly, the De would report to the accounting department the percentage of time s/he spent that month in each category, and that would be captured in the organization's books and records as three different types of salary. If the DE later gets a bonus, you would look first to the reason the bonus was earned for an indication as to which category should absorb it. Any amount that could not be traced to a specific function would be allocated base don the time the DE spent on each function over the period to which the bonus relates.

The second, more common approach is to record specific functional expenses (for instance, the salary paid to an employe whose responsibilities are exclusively fundraising or that camp staffer whose salary is explusively program) and then record other expenses as mixed-function expenses. At the end of the financial reporting period, the mixed-use expenses are allocated among functions using some reasonable method, sometimes based in part on past history.

The allocation of expenses by function is rarely an exact science, but it does need to be reasonable. For instance, if a DE spends 52% of his time on program delivery, 34% on fundraising and 14% on general matters, then, in a perfect world most things associated with that DE should be allocated based on those percentages. When you drill deep down, that means the rent associated with the square footage taken up by the DE's cubicle needs to be allocated. Once you have everybody's cubicle and office space allocated, you then need to allocate the common areas of the office. Even the cost of paper for the photocopier can be something difficult to allocate, unless you require employees to enter a code each time they make a copy. If 45% of staff salaries are allocated to the fundraising function, it is likely that a larger percentage of the copy paper expense is allocable there, since fundraising simply uses more paper than program.

The quality of the functional expense allocations depends on the effort put into getting it right. Usually, a practical approach to expense allocations is taken, provided it is demonstrably reasonable.

In the real world, organizations tend to allocate as little expense as possible to the fundraising function and as much as possible to program, since that helps them in soliciting more donations.

23 minutes ago, David CO said:

I hope the men didn't review and approve the adult leader applications at these alcohol-fueled Saturday-night poker games.  

I fear that some scout leaders may have been chosen for their ability to socialize with the adults rather than their skill at leading boys.

No, they didn't. That was handled by our COR, a Catholic priest who was later named by multiple victims in multiple parishes as a sexual abuse perpetrator.

As Scouts, we all appreciated the program opportnities the men made available to us. We were also well aware that they enjoyed the social aspect of weekend camping. A Scout in 1978 saw that in a completely dofferent way from how one would see it in 2021. That doesn't make it right, but it was not harmful to us. Had there ever been an emergency requiring adult intervention, that might have been a different story.

30 minutes ago, David CO said:

I watched My Cousin Vinny, so I knew that's how you New Yorkers pronounce it.  I just didn't know you spelled it that way, too.  

So, I went back and corrected it. Thanks for the heads up.

I recall as a Scout, the adults in my Brooklyn troop would frequently use the words ute or utes in conversation when referring to us. If a matter requiring decision arose, one of them might say, "We should let the utes decide." We actually called them "the men", and they used that term too. I remember one noticing we were getting too close to some prepared food yelling, "That food is for the men, not for the ute members."

They would say, "Everything we do is for the utes," as they settled down for their alcohol-fueled Saturday-night poker game. Different standards at that time. Today's utes just would not understand.

Anyone can see where I grew up by watching the opening and closing credits of Welcome Back, Kotter on youtube. I was a block away from the elevated subway tracks shown there, it ran 24 hours a day, and you could hear it all night, when other noises weren't present. The high school shown there was less than a 10-minute walk from where I lived. It isn't really called Buchanan as in the show; it's called New Utrecht. I didn't go there.

The street and subway scenes from Saturday Night Fever are also familiar sights from my childhood. At least as of late last year, Lenny's Pizza is still there. The elevated subway tracks in the background are the West End Line, the same shown in Welcome Back, Kotter.

8 minutes ago, MattR said:

What I've learned is that when it comes to trauma like this, where someone that society says you should be loyal to and yet they traumatize you anyway, it's next to impossible for the victim to walk away. Whether it's parents abusing kids, spousal abuse, CSA, or even war, this seems to be the crux of the pain. My understanding is that parts of our brains, the older parts, are wired towards loyalty towards community. So that part of the brain is keeping the victim from leaving the situation. The newer parts of the brain, including the parts that control reason and speech, you might think would just say "hey, this is a bad situation, leave!" but the two parts don't really talk to each other very well. Consequently there's a huge tension, words and reasoning don't work, and the result is PTSD and all the things we've been told about by the victims on this forum. My impression is that a compassionate community is probably the biggest type of help for the victims. The trauma makes a lot of changes in the brain and, again, just my impression, but it takes a lot of effort to rewire the brain.

From experience, I can say that parents abusing their children is different from the other situations you mention. When the abuse and neglect span an entire childhood, the child first has to reach an age where s/he as another reference point. Until then, the child sees the abuse as a normal part of growing up. By then, the chilkd has been conditioned to believe s/he is the cause of the abuse. It is difficult, maybe impossible, to break free of that. I didn't even start trying until I was 41.