I've received communication from a member questioning the validity of information about ARRL finances that is being sent to members. Based on the analysis below, I believe thismember's suspicion is valid. An email from Mr. Minster, contained the following - An Important Message about ARRL LifeMembership and Printed Magazines Dearxyz Thisletter is to explain a recent decision taken by the ARRL Board of Directorsabout the future of printed magazines (QST and On theAir specifically) and how this affects you, one of our loyal Life Members. LifeMembership was created in 1968 to raise money to help ARRL overcome a projecteddeficit in the budget. The introduction of Life Membership worked, however, theprogram has not sustained its ability to fund the full cost of annual dues forits members since 1973. In recent years, ARRL has only been able towithdraw $26 for each Life Member to fund $49 in dues. A program thatclearly demonstrates loyalty to ARRL to this very day lost its way financially,and we were loath to modify or eliminate this program. The sentence shown in bold is factually untrue. The Board, through the A&F Committee, settled on anumber that it felt represented a fair cost of carrying the Life Members, as itis required to do under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The numberswere also approved as being appropriate each year by the League's auditors,CohnReznick. The adequacy of the LifeMember reserve is further evaluated every few years by an independentactuary, as was done in 2022 by the actuarial and benefits consulting firm, Hooker and Holcombe. For many years the Board didallocate $26 a year, not because it couldn't allocate more, but because bothmanagement and the auditors felt $26 was the appropriate, fair, amount. Bear in mind that ARRL incurs lower cost to handle Life Members for reasons such as lack of need to solicit or process membership renewals or give anybooks or other incentives for renewing, . At the suggestion of Hooker and Holcombe, in 2022 the A&F Committee upped the $26 to $33 ayear. In the 2022 ARRL AnnualReport’s Statements of Financial Position, under current liabilities, thecurrent portion of deferred life membership dues was $626,706 for 2022 and $620,392 for 2021. With 18,801 (2022)and 18,883 (2021) Life Members this works out to roughly $33 per LifeMember. That’s a far cry from $26. The League’s financial accounts show a totalreserve of nearly $500 per Life Member. Even ignoring any earnings on these funds, that’s about fifteen years’ worthof services at the present rate, not exactly a precarious position given theaverage Life Member age of 69 years old and rising. It should be beneath ethical standards for an organizationconcerned with serving its members to resort to misleading our membership.The email sent to our Life Members mischaracterizes the nature of the Life Member withdrawal, misstates theactual amount, and falsely implies inadequacy of the life member funds. 73, Dick Norton, N6AA