Sun City West resident questions RCSCW’s math

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OPINION — During RCSCW’s annual membership/board meeting, CFO Clif Swann stated that the savings resulting from the imposition of credit card user fees would save about $300,000, which would be about $6 per member if equated to dues. That can’t be correct.

The budget for this fiscal year projects $16,416,535 in membership revenue, including owners, associates and landlord dues. Divide that by next year’s dues of $618 per person and the result is 26,564 paying cardholders. Divide that number into the projected $300,000 savings, and the result is $11.29 savings per person, almost double the $6 claim made by Swann. By his math, $300,000/$6 equals 50,000 people, but there aren’t 50,000 people living here.

I found the CFO’s remarks flippant and off the cuff, with little respect to those who the funds really belong to — the owners, associates and landlords. We’ll never see a dime. Instead of a smaller dues increase reflecting this savings, we got one that ignores the savings and piles on more dues instead.

During my second term on the Budget and Finance Committee, I proposed Sun City West enter the current century and allow residents to opt out of mailed paper invoices and annual golf card “reminders.” With first-class stamps now up to 82 cents, many thousands of dollars would be saved on invoice postage alone, plus some (unknown) number of unnecessary reminders. Add envelopes, paper, printing and employee costs to manage the daily deluge of outgoing invoices, and some real cash could be saved. CFO Swann refused to consider it, claiming this has been tried before and didn’t work, and that collections would increase.

No one I know, including many long-time residents, ever heard of this being tried before. I think it is time our CFO looks for employment elsewhere.

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