Are there more miscalculations?
It seems, with all the people on the Bella Vista Village Board of Directors and the Golf Committee, as well as the POA general manager, someone would have noticed a completely incorrect statement posted on the POA website in the FAQs section of "Looking Toward the Future." Or if not there, then in the weekly golf newsletter dated Aug. 5, 2016. That statement is "During prime-time hours (full price hours), non-members pay 28 percent higher fees than members ($11 a round)."
Simple arithmetic should tell all of them that subtracting the member's fee of $39 from the non-members fee of $48 results in only a $9 difference (far too little, in my opinion). I verified these fees using the 2016 fee schedule (unanimously approved by the board) and by contacting a pro shop. Ten years ago, this difference was $17 ($32 for non-members and $15 for members) per the 2006 fee schedule.
To add perspective to this $9 difference, improved lot members play over 36 rounds of golf to break even with non-members because the non-members do not pay assessments or buy a photo ID. Assuming no other changes, if the assessment is increased to $33 then the break-even point becomes over 48 rounds. In 2006 this breakeven point was about 19 rounds. In 2006, the number of golf rounds played was 264,953. In 2015, the number of rounds played was just 160,853. From these numbers, I would have to say a decade of trying to get more rounds played by increasing member fees while decreasing non-member's hasn't worked.
Undoubtedly this $2 math error was just an oversight, but it makes one wonder what other miscalculations have been made and gone unnoticed.
Ron Valentine
Bella Vista
Editorial on 08/17/2016