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 this member's suspicion is valid.

An email from Mr. Minster, contained the following -

An Important Message about ARRL Life Membership and Printed Magazines

Dear xyz

This letter is to explain a recent decision taken by the ARRL Board of Directors about the future of printed magazines (QST and On the Air specifically) and how this affects you, one of our loyal Life Members.

Life Membership was created in 1968 to raise money to help ARRL overcome a projected deficit in the budget. The introduction of Life Membership worked, however, the program has not sustained its ability to fund the full cost of annual dues for its members since 1973. In recent years, ARRL has only been able to withdraw $26 for each Life Member to fund $49 in dues. A program that clearly 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 a number that it felt represented a fair cost of carrying the Life Members, as it is required to do under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The numbers were also approved as being appropriate each year by the League's auditors, CohnReznick. The adequacy of the Life Member reserve is further evaluated every few years by an independent actuary, as was done in 2022 by the actuarial and benefits consulting firm, Hooker and Holcombe. For many years the Board did allocate $26 a year, not because it couldn't allocate more, but because both management 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 any books or other incentives for renewing, .

At the suggestion of Hooker and Holcombe, in 2022 the A&F Committee upped the $26 to $33 a year.

In the 2022 ARRL Annual Report’s Statements of Financial Position, under current liabilities, the current 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 Life Member. That’s a far cry from $26. The League’s financial accounts show a total reserve of nearly $500 per Life Member. Even ignoring any earnings on these funds, that’s about fifteen years’ worth of services at the present rate, not exactly a precarious position given the average Life Member age of 69 years old and rising.

It should be beneath ethical standards for an organization concerned 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 the actual amount, and falsely implies inadequacy of the life member funds.

73,

Dick Norton, N6AA