Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 11, 1991 TAG: 9102110057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It wasn't fun anymore, at least for the volunteers. Some say running the bingo hall had become almost like a second job.
So, Elma Layman, president of Virginia Education and Employment Opportunities Inc., shut the hall on Williamson Road after only three games this year. She and her secretary/treasurer, Marie Hill, just couldn't keep up with the paperwork, they said.
"I can't see volunteering my time, then sweating over these sheets," Layman said. After struggling to complete the forms, "we both almost had a nervous breakdown."
Layman's was one of just six non-profit organizations to receive bingo permits in the city since new bingo laws took effect Jan. 1. That's down from 25 last year.
Many say the drop is due to the extensive record-keeping now required by Roanoke. And then there's the 1.5 percent audit fee and increased permit fee.
Hill, 65, balanced the club's books using her own method and said she had no objections to a city auditor looking at them. "It's the same figures, just simpler," she said. "Everything matches, but they want me to write everything down.
"They're making us feel like criminals," she said.
That's not the city's intention, Finance Director Joel Schlanger said. "We're not enforcing it with whips and chains." The new forms are uniform for easier auditing, he said. "Just do your best. That's all we're asking."
As a result of complaints about bingo games, City Council voted in 1989 to enact city rules that parallel state laws governing bingo. Council also told Schlanger to supervise the accounting requirements for the bingo games and enforce the new regulations.
The extensive bookkeeping that has upset some volunteers includes recording the number of bingo tickets sold at the door; the number sold on the floor; the volunteer who sold them and how many they sold; the number of instant bingo cards sold; names and addresses of every winner; beginning and ending serial numbers of all tickets; and more, all in one night.
Peter Voorhis, deputy grand knight of the Knights of Columbus, sat on the stage in the St. Elias Catholic Church hall on a recent Tuesday night. Bingo was in session as he carefully entered information on the pile of forms before him.
Like most clubs before the changes, the Knights assumed the number of tickets gone at the end of the night had been sold, Voorhis said. "Now we have to count each individual seller, what they've got and what they come back with," he said.
The Knights of Columbus has about 120 active volunteers out of a 400 membership. This allows for five teams of seven to alternate each week.
It's not easy, but it's manageable, Voorhis said. The new law has made the group more structured in setting up its games, he said.
The new city ordinance was taken almost directly from the Code of Virginia.
"We didn't change the law, it was always there," Schlanger said. "It just wasn't enforced."
Some bingo halls were operating bingo illegally, and money for charity got lost in operating the business, he said. The city decided to enforce the law itself by passing a local ordinance.
Some halls paid clubs a specific amount of money to operate the bingo and the remaining funds went into the hall instead of to charity.
Last year bingo operators grossed more than $2.8 million in receipts and spent almost as much in prize money and expenses, said Deborah Moses, the city's chief of billings and collections. About $81,694 was given to charity.
Of the 25 organizations that operated bingo games last year, only 14 have provided financial reports to the city so far, she said.
A permit is issued to "an organization operated exclusively for religious, charitable, community or educational purposes" for a $200 fee, up from $25 last year.
The increased permit fee and audit fee of 1.5 percent of the gross income pays for enforcing the law, Schlanger said. The clubs pay to police themselves, and that takes the burden off the taxpayer, he said.
The clubs are issued a 70-page Bingo and Raffle Accounting Guide that "promulgates the minimum accounting records, practices, and procedures which shall be followed for all bingo games and raffles licensed by the City of Roanoke," the introduction says.
Most permit holders agree something should have been done to combat illegal bingo, but some feel the city has gone too far.
"It's ridiculous," Hill said. "The city's gone overboard. Every one of us doesn't have a college education [to complete the forms correctly]. It's bad enough to get volunteers, never mind spending 1 1/2 hours to fill out those sheets."
Roanoke's Delta Kappa chapter of Epsilon Sigma Alpha educational sorority is operating bingo for the first time in more than four years. But sorority volunteers are discouraged by the paper work and are debating whether it's worth continuing.
Lonnie Prillaman served a steady stream of hopeful winners for almost an hour on a Monday night at the Valley Center on Salem Turnpike. Almost as quickly as the $20 bills filled the till, they were handed out in neat bundles to winners.
Delta Kappa competes with other sister organizations across the country to raise funds for St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. With a membership of six, it has won many awards for its fund-raising efforts, Prillaman said.
Until the city's auditor's fee and rent for the center is paid, the members are not sure if it's worth all the volunteer hours. Delta Kappa offers bingo from noon to 10 p.m. Sundays and from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Mondays. It may stop offering bingo on Sunday nights.
"We're just a bunch of working women with kids trying to raise funds for charity," Prillaman said. "It's difficult, especially when it's voluntary. If we could pay someone to do the bookkeeping . . . but we can't."
Layman worries that she will lose the hall that was dedicated to her late husband, Harry, the former Virginia Education and Employment Opportunities Inc. president. She asked other clubs to lease the hall, but they refused once she explained to them what had to be done, she said.
"I don't understand why [the city] can tell us how to keep our records," Layman said. "They don't tell big businesses [how to do it]. Their records just better be there when they check."
by CNB