1980Scouter

57 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

But the LCs cannot either.  

The LC's have A LOT more they could give up(most,not all). I feel all cash and investments except for 6 months operating capital should go to the fund.  And maybe 50% of current camps too. That will still leave an alive BSA. They will have to work harder in the future to stay afloat.

1 hour ago, HelpfulTracks said:

Then what is fair in your mind?
What should BSA pursue?

Fair is LC contribution close to all endowments.  Start from scratch with limited camps. 

2 hours ago, CubHerder said:

Hello all. I am a leader of a Cub Scout Pack and I have been following this for the past few months to try to anticipate the impact to our unit. As things stand now, it appears that short-term impact to our unit will be minor aside from increased dues and maybe one less camp in our area. Long term … well the headwinds associated with Cub Scouts certainly haven’t disappeared but that is a different topic from bankruptcy. But nevertheless we have volunteers who are committed locally to Do Their Best for the scouts regardless of what is happening at higher levels of the organization.

 

I want to thank everyone on this forum for interpreting the legal proceedings, making it available to the public in a useful way, and providing color commentary from different viewpoints. There is no where else practical to find this information. Obviously BSA has communicated nothing useful on the matter, and our Local Council has been completely silent on the issue. To be fair, at least with the Local Council I suspect it is a conscious decision that since the day-to-day muck of bankruptcy proceedings really has no impact locally it is the better of two evils to just pretend it doesn’t exist and encourage units to carry on. Though I don’t always agree with some of the opinions, I would particularly like to thank CynicalScouter who seems to have found his calling in summarizing and translating legal documents into a form mere Cub Scout leaders can understand.

You have to keep in mind that in a year or two, there may be no Scouts BSA at all. This could happen.

At this point there is still alot of things up in the air. This court case in my opinion will not be over for some time.

How bad is national and LC's hurting for cash. A LC by me is advertising that the DE's will come to you to pick up any new registrations and the money of course. 

They said this is important so scouts can start advancement right away. 

Has anyone else heard BSA recruiting ads on their local radio? This past week I have heard some. I know they said after bankruptcy they were going to do an ad campaign to get membership back up.

What if this was years before the lawsuit and the LC's seeing that many of them have tens of millions in cash, decided to update and repair all scout camps in use?

How great would that have been? There is no scout camp out there that could not use a few million dollars or more to get the camp in top condition. 

Then a well maintained camp would draw more use and make it more sustainable. 

Do you not think if it was a positive situtation and they had an agreement the BSA would be yelling it from the tallest mountain? 

This announcement could set the tone for other CO's to follow. If it is not an agreement and settlement will others follow and drop scouting too? 

As far as LC's contribution,  if they would come up with a plan where each LC gets to keep ONE camp and 6 months operating funds where everything else goes to the settlement I think it would fly with no problem. Get rid of council offices too. With technology today a central office is not necessary.  Some staff could work out of the camp or from home.  

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Knowledge is power. I don’t mind when council and other big wigs say they cannot say something because of NDAs. I understand being under a LEGAL restriction to not talk.

What I oppose is the culture of secrets that permeates BSA. There are cliques, those “in” and those “out”. Information if not withheld then not shared openly and freely.

I just point this out: BSA as I demonstrated is literally the only large not for profit I know of of one focused on children and youth where you literally cannot figure out from their website who 1) senior leadership is (other than the national key-3) and 2) board members.

I will start to take BSA’s commitment to openness more seriously when they start to open up about ANYTHING.

I agree 100%. Knowledge is power. I was able to estimate my LC contribution within 10% after following this forum. The BSA does not communicate well, and that may be their downfall even if they survive bankruptcy. 

2 hours ago, MattR said:

I knew you'd have this available. Thanks!

Anyway, $3.3B / 750k scouts is $4400/scout. What other youth organization has anything close to that? What was the plan for all that money? How was it helping achieve the aims of scouting?

I'm sure its spent on something, but my impression is the plan, somewhere along the line, morphed from help units into grow the endowment.

 

You are so right. My LC has 20 million in property and investments but they act like they do not have two dimes to rub together. 

I had no idea they had this much in reserves. I made a large donation for a camp project. Six months later they sold the camp. I was never able to get any reply where my money went. So yes it is all about $$$ for salaries.

I do not know how I feel about scouting continuing.  It was a very good program for me in my time, but I feel like I did not have any knowledge of all the horrors going on. 

As many posters have said home life in the past was not great. Mine was no different, not so great. Scouting was a fun time most of the time. I feel like the BSA needs to shut down and reboot maybe in the future. They are going to lose most of their assets in this proceeding. 

Scouting now is more about large paid staffs on councils. Maybe rebooting can get back to the roots of very few employees and focusing on Scout values and camping, not fund raising.

10 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

  

It would be an amazingly hard sell to tell LCs that a) they have to pay $X in order to get coverage/clearance for THEIR liability in this and then, separately and after the fact b) come BACK to the LCs and say "Now, pay more".

Moreover, I think the amounts that COs are going to have to put in is going to be really interesting.

Let me come back to this chart a second.

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/213bd53f-b44f-45c9-97fc-246bcb7ca06b_4108.pdf

Unique and Timely Abuse Claim Count* by Top-20 Most Common Chartered Organizations

Chartered Organization Group	Unique & Timely Abuse Claim Count**
METHODIST CHURCH	3,760
BAPTIST CHURCH	3,157
CATHOLIC CHURCH	3,131
CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS	2,430
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH	1,611
LUTHERAN CHURCH	1,416
ARMED FORCES***	607
EPISCOPAL CHURCH	557
AMERICAN LEGION	477
YMCA	435
VFW	369
SALVATION ARMY	242
ELKS LODGE	222
LIONS CLUB	199
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS	195
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS	157
BOYS CLUB	129
KIWANIS CLUB	108
ROTARY CLUB	88
MOOSE LODGE	75
OTHER	20,985
UNKNOWN	36,496
MISSING	5,740
Total	82,586

 

The Methodists are looking at 3760 claims. We do NOT have data on how many are time-barred, but let's assume it is the same rate as for ALL claims of around 30%. That means they are looking at 1128 non-time-barred claims.

Let's just look at the total claims here a second, time-barred or not.

Let's take the Grand Canyon Council average payment (since they are an open state): $14,085 per claim. That's probably going to be the high end for the Methodists since not ALL claims are in open state. It could be HIGHER (since the Methodist Church as an institution has more assets than Grand Canyon) or lower (if the individual churches are being sued/claimed against). So, with those caveats aside:

3760 claims * $14,085 = $52,959,600.

If I were the Methodists, I would be absolutely flipping out right about now. And in fact many are.

But let's cut that in half. Again, not all open states AND the total average each victim will get from LCs is about half what Grand Canyon is paying (600,000,000/82,586 = $7265)

3760 claims * $7265 = $27,316,400

That's over $27 million just to get out from under this mess AND for the "privilege" of having a facilities use agreement?

Very well said, last paragraph.  That sums it up in my opinion but we will see.

5 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

That's where the train is heading and the RSA and Plan 4.0 both contemplate a scenario where the COs are having to pay in.

Plan 4.0 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/7082572a-2eeb-4a35-bc9b-e515925846fd_5486.pdf talks about "Contributing Chartered Organizations" and "Contributing Chartered Organization Settlement Contribution".

BSA is NOT and does NOT have the money to cover the tens of millions that the COs are on the hook for.

All those years of COs not paying any attention to their units and CORs just signing the annual charter and paying no attention whatsoever are coming back to haunt them.

And whether or not they toss out every unit they have NOW (or even allow facilities use agreements) it does nothing to remove the liability already incurred and the debts that will have to be paid.

Check out the Methodist thread and read the letters from the Bishops. They are absolutely livid that BSA is telling them a) they were never covered and b) even in years they WERE covered by BSA's policies the policy limitations are way, way below what the value of the victims claims are going to be.

 

I think there is still some money out there especially from LC's. Mine has 20 million in assets and is paying 6.5 million into the settlement.  Not all LC's are like this but I was really surprised reading how much reserve funds some councils have. 

National still has HAB's and other small assets.  I feel like it will take more of these assets if there is to be a settlement.

While not fair, maybe the cash rich councils could contribute more to try to get a final deal with CO's covered. If the goal is to truly save scouting for the future, it might take this.

If there is to be a settlement that covers CO's too, how can it not involve a large increase in contributions from National and LC's to the fund?

Why would any organization have to contribute hundreds of millions to the settlement, stay in the BSA program, even just through a facilities use agreement?

I just don't see how BSA can ask CO's for any money if they hope to retain them in the future.

Lake Erie Council just announced they will contribute 6.5 million to the settlement.  They have around 450 claims. They are using a line of credit to pay for it. They have 20 million in assets including two camps,  they sold a third camp last year. Very interesting on a line of credit use to pay for this. 

The one thing I wonder about is the future abuse cases. We all know this will continue to occur if on a much smaller scale. But adding girls especially of the teen aged years I think abuse will continue, even between scouts too. 

Surely there will be lawsuits especially after this and past lawsuits set that lawsuits are successful. 

I think if BSA survives it is a matter of time before they are forced out of existence.  A few weeks ago there was a assault that occurred at a scout camp in my county. Not sure the details, but the local sheriff was called and it was in the paper. Goes to show this is not an easy issue to solve.

6 hours ago, Life said:

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/boy-scout-chaperone-accused-of-placing-hidden-cameras-in-bathrooms-at-summer-camp/amp/

im confused and angry. Forgive me if this is not the place to post this and I will remove it. All the while squabbling in court to compensate past csa survivors while creating more victims.  The irony. 

And he has a Boy Scout T Shirt on in the mug shot. Good for PR. Priceless.....

Simon Kenton Council in Ohio announced at a scouting forum that they will most likely sell Chief Logan Reservation and Camp Madison Lake. CLR is a main summer camp where this is the last summer for camping. Madison Lake is a very small camp, basically a single campsite on a state park lake. They also said they have to contribute 2.7 million to the settlement in cash and property.  They said they were surprised that it was not more.  This council has been very upfront with the bankruptcy for the past year.

3 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

Hello All.  New here-first post.

I read these forums for hours and hours, and signed up to post this.

So, as I understand the upshot of it all:

1.  That National initially indicated that Local Councils would pay nothing and be protected but now the Local Councils are expected to pay $600 million which will result in the sale of hundreds of Local Council Camps and Council offices, though the National High Adventure Camps will be protected and survive.

2.  That National initially indicated that Chartering Organizations would pay nothing and be protected but now Chartering Organizations are expected to contribute to the Settlement Fund in some amount (unknown to me) in order to be protected from all past claims.

3.  That Chartering Organizations now see themselves, or soon will, that they are passengers on the liability train to Haydes courtesy of the BSA, thereby destroying the "Chartering Organization as sponsor of a scout unit" model.

4.  That National's pension plan which pays pensions to retired Scouting Professionals, and will pay pensions to current Professionals, the single class of persons most benefited by National's decades-long concealment of the abuse problem, will be fully protected by the Bankruptcy Plan. (That is, the second most culpable group, after the perpetrators, will be fully protected whereas current scouts and future scouts will be prejudiced.)

5.  That Local Council camps which serve the vast majority of scouts will be sold whereas the National High Adventure Bases which serve a small percentage of scouts will be preserved.  And the National employees who work for those camps will retain their jobs and earn their pensions.

6.  That after the dust settles, parents, volunteers, and dedicated Scouters will "pick up the slack" and help cover this catastrophe, the professionals suffering financially  only if lay folks don't make good on the losses.

7.  That current Council Executives have a choice of following National's directive that their Council pay the amount expected by National to the Settlement Fund (thereby hopefully sparing the council executive from the corporate ax and preserving their chances of the lucrative BSA pension, OR, bucking National by refusing to subject their council to paying what National demands, and sacrificing their career and their family's future.).  And, won't all of them acquiesce to National's demands and thereby the camps be sold?

 

As an aside-

My very best friend only 2 years ago advised me that a Scoutmaster had abused him.  That he has been in weekly counseling ever since.  My friend holds a Phd.  My friend has NOT filed a claim in respect of the program which my friend believes saved is life.

I have another friend who credits Scouting as saving his life-and I am sure he is right.

I am an Eagle and father of 3 Eagles.  My Scouting resume is 4 pages long.

I am deeply saddened by the damage done to innocent children, and to the dream that once was Camelot.

Were I making the decision, first I'd liquidate National's pension plan, and then the High Adventure Bases.  National policies got the Councils into this mess, and it should be the first to pay the price.

The notion that Councils are "independent" of National is nonsense.

 

Very good summary.  I agree with you 100%. Welcome to the forum!!!

7 minutes ago, Bronco1821 said:

I just found out I live in a SOL state which basically means I went through all this for nothing.  Why is it to my advantage to vote for the plan?  Seems like everyone wins but me... BSA, Insurance Companies, Attorneys, Local Councils and Chartered Organizations will all be ok while I still get to go through therapy.  Nothing seems to change with this nightmare, I finally thought that something good could come out of it....guess not.

I feel for your pain. Going through the process of recalling bad times is difficult.  Has your state legislature had any discussions on changing the law?

If enough people make a case to the gov't, maybe laws can be changed. 

So maybe in a week we should hear more from our LC as they vote on it.

There has been nothing from my LC on it ever. Councils need to be honest and upfront about what is going on. They are trying to present a face that everything is fine.

We do not need the numbers but how about some communication about our camps future?

Agree on larger councils size and membership wise. If you council has less than 15,000 scouts it could do better and cheaper merged to save costs. 

It is my hope with the national bankruptcy and LC contribution to the settlement as well as decreased number of scouts it will cause LC's to realize that really very few staff are needed. Have a great web site with all info/forms/scout shop items and you are golden. Very lean staff needed=less fees and fundraising. 

2 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

On the salaries - From the 2019 - form 990

(CEO/Secretary) Base, Bonus, other compensation $459,042 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $622,731
(Deputy Scout Executive) Base, Bonus, other compensation  $189,411 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $261,6901
(Director of Development/) Base, Bonus, other compensation  $155,602 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $177,294
(Director of Field Service) Base, Bonus, other compensation    $151,268 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $194,938
(Director of Support Service) Base, Bonus, other compensation    $146,684 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $185,891
(Accounting Manager) Base, Bonus, other compensation     $101,634 - Total compensation (retirement / nontaxable) - $165,897

For 2019 revenue of $14.3 MM and salaries and other compensation $6.5 MM

 

 

Wow that must be a well funded LC. The SE salary is crazy!!!!!

This was my point exactly.  Councils could do with 50% less staff or more. Especially if they all end FOS and do a higher registration fee. No need to fund raise as much. 

I remember growing up in scouting my council had very few employees and nice camps. This was in the 80's.  The registration fee was minimal then too. I believe there was greater United Way support then though. People donated then because they knew it would benefit camps and not salaries.