More on Messaging to Life Members Sentences in communication from Mr. Minster, such as 1) "what we have been permitted by the auditors to draw from the LM funds," (from Mr. Minster's email to ODV), and 2) "ARRL has only been able to withdraw $26 for each Life Member to fund $49 in dues," (from Mr. Minster's email to Life Members) do not factually describe either the handling of Life Member dues or the roll of the auditors. They incorrectly imply problems with Life Member financial issues. If there is going to be an A&F discussion about Life Membership funding, it might be beneficial to invite the long-term audit-firm partner, Paul Balasay, He should be able to educate attendees on the actual role the auditing firms play. I believe he would reinforce the points made in my initial email. The paragraph about "anyone with more than a couple years experience on A&F" strongly suggests that the author does not understand how the League handles Life Member funds. The claims that "the rate" is greatly deficient and that "term members have had to make up the difference" have no basis in fact. There has never been any detailed breakdown of costs attributable to Term Members, Life Members, Blind Members, Youth Members, or any combinations of any groups ever presented to A&F or the Board. The League, under present management, does not even bookkeep labor costs by project or activity, so that any such cost partitioning is likely to be inaccurate. It is fair to say that, over the years, the League's overall financial position has been solid, and the reserves for Life Membership have been solid. Those reserves for Life Member dues shown in the annual reports have gone from $5.5M to $9M in the years I've been on the Board where the number of Life Members has not changed much. The existing system has served us reasonably well. Recent Life Member and Term Member Board Actions Three years ago, the League instituted a reduced price Life-Membership for members over 70 with 25 years of prior membership. The program was actuarily revenue neutral for members of age 70, and therefore revenue beneficial to the League for those older than 70. It didn't require making up any difference by Term Members. The program was revenue beneficial by itself, and that's with the printed magazine included. Nearly half of our Life Members are over 70 years old, and most of them paid the full, undiscounted Life Member fees. At the July 2023 Board meeting, the Board voted to live up to its membership agreement concerning printed magazines with the Life Members. The Board abrogated essentially the same agreement it had with the Term Members, demanding that they pay more for what they contracted for when they paid their dues. Possible Actions 1) The printed magazine issue has created ill will that could have been avoided by continuing the printed magazine through the remainder of the respective membership terms. There's still an opportunity to make this change, defuse the issue, and retain some of the goodwill of those Term Members who now feel cheated. 2) The revenue information conveyed to the Life Members in Mr. Minster's email was not consistent with our published financial records. Members who perceive that they are being given inaccurate information, especially for cost-related issues, may feel less inclined to support and promote ARRL. I welcome suggestions about possible ways to ameliorate this. 73, Dick Norton, N6AA On Friday, October 20, 2023 at 10:21:21 AM PDT, Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) <dminster@arrl.org> wrote: The Life Member program will be discussed at length at the A&F meeting. I will ensure that Diane includes a schedule of what we have been permitted by the auditors to draw from the LM funds going back a descriptive number of years. Anyone with more than a couple of years' experience on A&F should very well know that the rate was $26 before recently moving to $33. The fact remains that it is greatly deficient, term members have had to make up the difference, this has been going on and getting worse for decades, and only now are we taking action to correct the problem. It is easy to get diagnostic about why this has continued to languish, but the results aren’t particularly constructive or useful. I note that the email was censored obscuring who if anyone has the concern. Please forward the original email on to me so that we can respond to our member. Thanks. David Get Outlook for iOSFrom: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> on behalf of Baker, Mickey, N4MB (Dir, SE) <mbaker@arrl.org> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 10:27:20 PM To: Norton, Richard N6AA (Dir, SW) <richardjnorton@yahoo.com>; arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org <arrl-odv@arrl.org> Subject: [arrl-odv:35280] Re: False Financial Information Being Sent to Members Hey, Dick, Thanks for the history. As you know, this is a write down from funds that should be enough to service those members. It has been a long time since this was adjusted. $33 isn’t likely enough if we were to value inflation since it was changed. But these are budgetary numbers. Whatever it cost to meet the needs of life members for the year will be the actual cost. We simply chose the recommended number because we believe it is nearer to reality. Reading the historical documents, the hope of the AMS project was to provide more tracking of member interaction so that we can get more detail around and control. It has not turned out that way. Personify is something that we will, sooner or later, need to bite the bullet and replace. But before that, we need an inventory of services we offer and corresponding systems support. Then we can prioritize a plan for integrated systems for replacement. Thoughts? MickeyFrom: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> on behalf of Richard Norton via arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 8:03 PM To: arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org <arrl-odv@arrl.org> Subject: [arrl-odv:35279] False Financial Information Being Sent to Members 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