I’ve had several questions come up regarding why members saw 2 fines on their last bill. It’s probably time to explain this again since the next round of statements are coming out shortly.

The first fine on your last statement (dated 6/30/09) was for the remaining balance of fines that you committed to at the beginning of the last fiscal year. Some of you were “overfined” and you received a credit but most of us were “underfined”. In either event, unless you were fined the EXACT amount that you committed to during the year, there was some adjustment to your bill.

Example: You committed to $200 in fines and you were fined 1) $100 for a new grandchild in October 2008 and 2) $50 for a trip to Hawaii in March 2009. Your last bill would have reflected an additional $50 in fines as an adjustment to bring you to your committed $200.

As you can well imagine, those who didn’t have fines throughout the year may have quite a large fine adjustment at the end of the year. This can also create budget problems as the fines come in sporadically and then a lump sum at the end. To alleviate this headache, the following was proposed by the Board and accepted.

All members will be fined quarterly, in advance, in the amount of 25%  of the total that was committed at the beginning of the year. So, in the above example, if you committed the same fine level, your bill would’ve reflected a $50 fine amount dated 7/1/09. This will repeat every quarter, regardless of the number or dollar amount assigned by our Finemasters Dave and Geoff.

Ergo, most members had the 2 fines listed above on their last statement. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it was listed in the High Gear when we first decided to enact this change. Read it here:

Give me a jingle or shoot me an email if you have questions.

Your Treasurer

Gerard