price of gas

[Apache Bob]

How does your Troop have the Scouts pay for the transportation cost for a weekend camping trip? Or any trip?
On a per trip basis? Or a flat fee paid out every six months or paid once a year.
Do the parents drive or does your unit have a van or rent a van?
Your thoughts please

[1st Mate]

In the many years that I have been in scouting I have only recieved reimbursement one time on a trip and that was because we had surplus funds in the unit and the committee offered to pay for our fuel.

It's just not something that has been an issue with me. I do however claim the milage on my taxes.

If the donation of the fuel is prohibitive, and I can understand how it could be today, I would simply let the Scoutmaster know and ask if there was some way you could be reimbursed.

[jperso]

Our Troop reimburses for gas out of Troop funds. So far we have not had to increase outing fees to cover gas. Gas has made us pay more attention to empty seats in cars. Troop funds come from fund raising.

[WB Bear]

I have never been reimbursed either for fuel. But I do claim it on my taxes. The cost of gas has always been rising so this isn’t a new problem. I am sure many remember when gas went over a $1 a gallon.

Jperson brought out a good point. Better planning so as not to have the empty seats. Also it might be a good time to see about involving more of the parents in providing transportation.

I really hate to see the fees for outing get too high.

[SM_453]

On long trips, our Troop will charge a fuel fee. Most of the drivers don't have a problem with paying for it out of pocket but, we have had some who do. In order to keep the drivers, we adopted a fuel fee.
We use the approach of a bus ticket. The only way to get the fuel cost paid for is to fill all the seats. This approach makes it fair to the Scout. If a parent drives one Scout and their own son, the get fuel money for driving both.

The cost of the ticket is takes into account the Mileage, gas price, average seats/vehicle and average vehicle MPG. Our Outdoor Activities Coordinator just plugs in the Price per gallon and miles to travel.
This has been very successful with our Troop.

SM

[Dave Thum]

Our troop (338, Avon Lake, OH) adds up the cost of the gas and splits it amongst all attendees, scouts and scouters. We are planning to cut back on the longer trips this next year to keep costs in check. We have plenty of opportunities in our own backyard.

One other thing we do is keep a meal account of $10 per scout/scouter so we can quickly reimburse the purchaser of food for an outing. Once we know the costs we then send home a form letting each scout know what he needs to remit to bring his account back to $10.

[miscoutmom]

We pay for it out of our pocket. I've never been reimbursed for gas whether having my own son or a bunch. I'm sure its not in our budget. I just keep my reciepts and claim it on my taxes.


Jenny :cool:

[Frank]

How does the troop pay for food, campground fees, propane, charcoal, firewood, paper towels, etc.? Gas is no different; it's a cost of going camping and must be paid the same as any other expense. In our troop we build gas expense into the campout fee charged each boy, same as all other camping expenses.

[substring]

We charge $12 grub money per person (Scouts and Scouters) for each campout to cover the food. The campground fees, propane gas, and misc expenses come out of the general fund. Each Scout pays $.50 Troop due per week, and we do some fundraisers for additional money.

Unless the trip is more than 200 miles, the drivers do not get reimbursed on gas money. For trips over 200 miles, we charge an extra $2.00 per person to subsidize the gas expenses. And the Troop pays for the remainder.

We also have many dads that pay things out of their own pockets and did not ask for reimbursement (a donation to the Troop).

[T23]

As are most things in life, not all things are always equal.

When it comes to the sometimes sticky issue of outing transportation... not all scouts have transportation, not all scouts have parents who will volunteer to help drive, not all parents or Scouters have equal sized vehicles in terms of number of seats, gear hauling capacity, or gas consumption, and not all parents and Scouters have the same financial ability to absorb or otherwise "donate" certain actual out-of-pocket costs.

Let's also not forget that most units tend to depend upon a core set of volunteers who do most of the driving to outings. They have additional real, hard costs for the maintenance and upkeep of their vehicles... oil changes, tune ups, tires, brakes, shocks, etc. How many of us have seen a transmission or other major failure on vehicles that have religiously pulled the unit trailer month after month? This is a tough financial hit on any volunteer parent or Scouter that can't ever be fully compensated.

Let's hope none of us forget that one of the most important aspects of Scouting is the Scout Law and the ninth point is a Scout is Thrifty.... as in a Scout saves his money so he can pay his own way!

It isn't a unit leader or any Scouters responsibility to baby-sit Scouts. It isn't our responsibility to provide Scouts with free services or entertainment on a monthly or on any other periodic basis for that matter. And, sad to even have to say it, but it isn't the responsibility for some parents or Scouters to pick up the pieces or otherwise subsidize those families who never, ever volunteer to drive or otherwise help or contribute with monthly outings.

What is our responsibility as leaders and Scouters to instill in our Scouts values that will last them a lifetime. One of the values we should be trying to instill in our Scouts is that they should be grateful and thankful that there are parents and Scouters who donate their personal time and make their vehicles available in order for the Scouts to have reliable transportation to and from monthly outings because without this voluntary contribution the Scouts would not be able to attend and enjoy monthly outings.

One of the ways that Scouts can demonstrate that they are thankful and "paying their own way" by living the Scout Law in their daily life is by helping to defray the actual, out-of-pocket cost, incurred by their vehicle driver. A method that has worked well for our unit is to determine the round trip mileage from the meeting point to the campsite and back. There are a number of on-line services that calculate mileage quickly and accurately. The total outing round trip mileage is multiplied by the IRS charitable mileage rate; which currently is 14 cents per mile. Using a baseline of a standard vehicle with 5 seats... one driver and 4 Scouts... the total mileage cost is divided by 4 to determine a per Scout transportation fee for each outing. The transportation fee is then added to any other costs that will be passed on to each Scout attending that outing.

For example: take an outing location that is 130 miles away... 130 miles each way times 2 equals 260 total miles. 260 miles times $0.14 per mile equals $36.40. $36.40 divided by 4 Scouts equals a transportation fee of $9.10 per Scout.

The total transportation fee reimbursed to each driver is based upon the actual number of Scouts they transport, not the number of seats their vehicle contains to encourage full vehicles and discourage more than one partially filled vehicle per outing. So if a driver, for whatever reason, doesn't want to fill all or even any of the remaining available seats, the driver will only receive the transportation fees for the actual number of Scouts transported. (This situation is kind of rare and most usually is related to parents of those Scouts who are learning to drive and for obvious reasons are not permitted to transport other Scouts. It is important to note that laws vary from state to state on underage, licensed drivers and the laws of states traveling to or thru may vary from your home state and these legal requirements should be considered in addition to the BSA policy for transportation, ref Guide to Safe Scouting - Chapter XII.)

Because the number of Scouts and seats needed is rarely a perfect match, our unit treasury reimburses the driver of the last vehicle filled for the transportation fee for each untaken seat in their vehicle... with a firm unit policy that only one vehicle per outing may contain any such untaken seats and the untaken seats must not be the fault of the driver. Our SPL along with the monthly outing Tour Leader try to juggle cars, seats, drivers, Scouts etc. so as to best utilize available resources, prevent waste, and avoid any unnecessary expense to the unit treasury.

Truly the task of outing transportation is more of an art than a science. What we have found is that by minimizing the number of drivers/vehicles needed and by helping to defray most of the actual out-of-pocket costs associated with driving that our number of willing parent and Scouter volunteer drivers remains high. The more active, involved parents we have the better our ability to continue to offer a strong outdoor program.