Treasurer says we have to send money to the troop for crossover scouts

[T2Eagle 902]

I decided to make this a separate post for clarity.  Generally, if a Pack and Troop are from the same CO, the Troop, for a myriad of reasons, is going to be more financially secure than the Pack.  Unless you are talking about scout accounts there is no good reason tat a Pack would be financially supporting a troop.

[qwazse 4342]

It's nice that some years back, leaders of the pack and troop thought that some money should flow in the direction the troop treasurer observed flowing. They had their reasons. But ...

If your units did not have by-laws approved by the units and the CORs (and therefore the CO), then that is not an ensconced policy. So the reply to the troop treasurer should be, "Great, show me the by-laws specifying what should be transferred so the treasurer can note it the memo."

[curious_scouter 125]

This all comes down to your local units and their established policies.  Issue with Scouting is it is generational.  Leaders and scouts come, engage for a time, and move on.  If a policy was not written down and passed on, it's often lost.  My advice is don't be afraid to rethink anything that's not specifically documented.  Even so, some of my least favorite words to hear are "That's what we've always done."  So?  Doesn't make it right.  Doesn't make it right for right now.  I don't think you need to reinvent the wheel for the sake of it, but I do think the generational rollover of Scouting leadership provides an organic opportunity to re-evaluate stuff like this.  My predecessor used to ask two questions when change was suggested:  "Does it make sense?"  "What problem does it solve?"  If it made sense and solved a problem, it was a good thing to look into.  If not - don't fix what's not broken is usually the best thing.

[dk516 29]

The only other thing coming to mind besides Scout accounts is the difference in calendar months between your dues paying date and your recharter date. Packs in our area (and so was my former Pack) charge annual dues in August because of the school year calendar. Our Troop charges annual dues in December because of the recharter being December where the money is needed. AOLs crossing over in February/March theoretically paid their dues all the way through July of that year for the Pack but the Troop will end up with expenses for these Scouts between February to the end of the year. Some Troops maybe just "eat" that cost, other charge pro-rated until December and for some units the Pack maybe moves the remaining "year-end" fund per Scout to the other unit.

[IndyDad 4]

Along the lines of what curious_scouter mentioned, don't be afraid to bring this up with your Pack committee and re-evaluate. I would suggest talking with the Troop to get a good understanding of what the funds are needed for. I know that our Pack transfers any scout balances over to the Troop when a scout crosses over, but otherwise no additional funds are passed over.

Our Troop has its annual dues that help pay for incurred costs per scout, however we don't ask crossover families to pay for that first year (as it would seem a bit much to say "Hey, welcome to the Troop! By the way, that'll be X dollars to join us!"), when they already paid their national/council fees a few months ago. That said, I could see why a troop might ask for a portion of that year's dues to help pay for any new crossover-purchased items (our Troop supplies the Book, Epaulets, and a Neckerchief as they join the troop, so technically we don't collect fees for those items until the next year).

[DuctTape 1230]

Our troop does monthly dues collected by the patrol. It is $1/month,  (basically 25cents per weekly meeting.) It is purposely low, but has a greater purpose than the $. The majority of finances for the troop is through our larger fundraisers.