One opened, more to go... Operation Clambake present:

The Cheryl S Story


 

Accounting

           An org's accounting weeks starts at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday and runs until 2:00 p.m. the following Thursday. At 2:00 p.m. on Thursdays, stats are collected for the week, ethics conditions are started, battle plans are written and turned into seniors. The Advisory Council convenes on Thursday nights. The "Ad Council" or "AC" is composed of divisional secretaries: HAS, Dissem, Treas, Tech, Qual and the three Public Secretaries. The AC works out the finances with the money from the week that just closed and prepares a battle plan ("BP") for the coming week. The BPs are basically work outs on who to reg (sell) in the coming week, who gets named to "comp" (complete) their courses, auditing, etc. This information is then handed over to the Executive Council for approval. The "Exec Council" or "EC" is composed of the ED and the three Exec Secs: HES, OES and PES.

           The AC figures out what bills will be paid. It is a tough job, as there are usually many more bills than money. The Scientology financial policies state that the payroll allocation for Scientology organization staff members is 30% of the weekly corrected gross income (CGI). CGI is the gross income [GI] minus things like bounced checks and the amount of last week's booksales equal the CGI. Then 30% of the CGI is allocated for payroll. This 30% allocation is conditional, however, because if the other 60% of the income is not enough to cover all the mandatory bills an organization has to pay (mandatory internal scientology bills like film lease payments [which is 8% of all monies paid for training in a week], 14% to organizational promotion, management payments, payments to help finance the quarterly events at the Shrine Auditorium, payments to upper orgs for staff training, etc.), things which have to be paid before an org can pay its own rent, utilities, buy supplies, staff payroll, etc., then there is very little, if any, payroll. Normally, a new recruit is NEVER informed of this reality.

           So assuming that there is some money for payroll, staff on fixed pay like the nannies, someone doing a special project (like Steve and the audits), a freelance auditor or two, would be paid first, and then the remaining payroll amount would be divided amongst the rest of the staff, depending upon how many units you were allowed and that week's value of the unit, plus or minus amounts due to your personal statistic (explained below). A "unit" was a number calculated by your position within the organization. So a low level staff member would make fewer units than an executive.

           If the org makes no money, then there is no payroll that week. A no or low pay week is NEVER made up in the future. And upper orgs or management never lend it to a lower org or allow an org to skip or reduce its payments to upper management. Staff are always paid in cash, a puzzling practice considering the security risk of transporting, large sums of case from the bank to the org. Occasionally, though, the org had a good week (exception to the rule, though). So here is an all too typical scenario:

$20,000Gross Income (GI) for last week
- 1,500Bounced Check (BC) for the current week
+ 500Bounced Check Collected (BCC) from prior week
- 4,000Booksales from last week (because 100% of all monies from booksales are reinvested in bookstocks)
=$14,000 Corrected Gross Income (CGI)
 
- 2,100Promotion (14% of CGI)
- 400Money Paid for Training (mandatory 8% of all monies paid for training that week [assuming $ 5,000 for this example])
- 2,000Management bill
- 1,500Quarterly Shrine event (weekly breakdown of a quarterly expense)
- 4,500Payroll (30% of the CGI)
- 800Payment to upper org for staff training
 
= $2,700 Monies available to pay other bills such as:
 
Rent$10,000($2,500 per week)
Phone2,000($500 per week)
Gas500($125 per week)
Electric1,500($375 per week)
Supplies???(including toilet paper, paper towels, admin. supplies, etc.)
Payroll????(and if any money for payroll, fixed pay comes off the top before regular staff get paid as explained above) Etc.
           So you see what happens to payroll, since it is the only things that can be cut from the FP (Financial Planning). Staff don't get paid or are paid inadequately. Now, multiply this scenario by week after week and you will see why the org doesn't pay its rent on time and usually has to get an eviction notice nearly every month before it is forced to declare a "State of Emergency," "Hill 10", and "All Hands" actions to scrape up the rent. In a State of Emergency, there are no privileges and all staff must work continuously until the "Hill 10" is handled. And God help you if your stats are down!)

           Steve's average pay (when he was the Flag Banking Officer, a top executive level position in the FBO network (a network that is autonomous of the org hierarchy, that is equal in status with the org's Executive Director, with the exception that the FBO can tell the ED what to do, not vice versa) averaged approximately $150 per week. And this was for working 60+ hours per week, IF the org made enough money to actually have a payroll that week!

           And payroll wasn't the only thing cut. Too many times, there wasn't enough money to buy toilet paper. You either brought your own or suffered. Many times, staff and public would bring back "extra" napkins from Taco Bell down the street. Or some staff might pay for it out of their own pocket because it was so embarrassing to have customers asking where the T.P. was and have to tell them there was none (again and again).

           The above figures were done from memory. They may not be 100% accurate, but they are accurate enough to show how insane it is to work in an org when it doesn't make enough money (which is typical), how underpaid (or not paid at all) staff can be. And when an org doesn't make enough money, what happens then?

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