Quarterly Report months

Hi everyone

I was wondering what others thought of this? Currently the quarterly report months are March, June, September, December. However, these are the most inaccurate months to report on for our stake in Australia, as well as being some of the busiest times of year.

For example, many members go holidaying & travelling for school holidays. Others return to New Zealand and other locations for up to a month or more during holiday periods. December especially is a transient time of year.

In the USA and other locations, tithing settlement is also held in December, making the collection of quarterly reports even harder. In other locations (like Australia), this occurs in June.

My preference would be to make the quarterly reporting months February, May, August, November. This would be the most accurate reflection of who regularly attends meetings in each ward, as well as reducing the burden at other key times, such as tithing settlement, histories, Christmas & holidays, etc.

Is this something others agree with, and would it be appropriate to suggest to headquarters?

Warwick, Stake Clerk (Australia)

It is an interesting observation and one I've made here in the states as well. For us, there effect is worsened by the fact that when our wards empty for vacations in December or the Summer, much of that is reflected as increases in Utah Wards or other areas with Higher populations of Mormons, while those of us in the 'mission field' are left with lower numbers.

We routinely have wards that are significantly impacted in December, particularly, but also in the Summer.

To me, the better option is to keep a running 12 month average to help offset the smaller numbers vacationing and snow days, etc... If you have a dramatically different number up or down you could throw it out, but I'd rather see it done that way...

If the quarterly reporting numbers are used for budgeting purposes, and the budget is meant to reflect the funding of the participating, functioning members, then it should accurately reflect the active/attending families. Counting sacrament is one way to do that, but a more lengthy distribution of the average, rather than using the quarterly method would produce a more accurate count in many cases where wards/branches suffer from holiday/vacation/school terms/semesters... etc...

knealewj wrote:My preference would be to make the quarterly reporting months February, May, August, November. This would be the most accurate reflection of who regularly attends meetings in each ward, as well as reducing the burden at other key times, such as tithing settlement, histories, Christmas & holidays, etc.

Is this something others agree with, and would it be appropriate to suggest to headquarters?

I agree that those months would tend to be a bit more accurate, since December is an unusual month. Also, for YSA wards associated with colleges, attendance goes down dramatically in December. But if November is a reporting month, then the reports need to be compiled in December, which creates its own challenges. Nothing's perfect.

I really doubt that this longstanding procedure would be changed, but it never hurts to submit a suggestion.

aebrown wrote:I really doubt that this longstanding procedure would be changed, but it never hurts to submit a suggestion.

The question is how to submit it. The people who make that decision never visit the fourm. I'd suggest your stake president bring up the issue with the area athority.

I see it here in Provo, where BYU seriously impacts everything, not just with the units associated with it, but many other wards nearby.

Typically, this hits December because Christmas break is in December, with a break at the end of Winter term in April, and at the end of Spring/Summer term in August although a bit less as the Spring/Summer term is not as heavy a term as Fall and Winter are.

Some stakes see a large number of members leave and go elsewhere. I've been in Christmas Eve Sacrament meetings where all three wards combine, and there's only enough to fill the chapel as if only one ward were meeting.

So a different scheme is needed to handle those statistics that are used to calculate LUBAs, to allow for things like this and to more correctly reflect average weekly attendance on most other weeks of the year.

Not just attendance, but also home teaching numbers. I'm in one of those YSA wards at BYU, and every time the semester changes, half of the ward moves out and different people move in. We mark people in MLS as "visited" in the first half of December, then everyone moves in and out in the last couple weeks of the month. By the time January rolls around, especially if we wait until the 15th, half of the people visited in December are gone and none of the people who moved in are marked as visited. The home teaching numbers are always skewed between semesters. Visiting teaching, too.

I'm sure this fact is not lost on the Brethren. They are obviously choosing to worry about other important matters. When I used to be a Clerk, I always tried to understand some of the oddities behind the numbers, in case it ever came up. It never did, except at a ward level.

Just my 2-cent's worth. Don't worry...

I wasn't called to the position I'm called to 'Don't Worry' - I advocate for positions I believe can and ought to be changed as long as the Doctrine of the Church is not impacted. As far as I'm concerned, I see no scriptural, or generally accepted authoritative pronouncement regarding funding. It is the way hat was presented when the budgeting changed from member-funded to Church-tithing-funded, and has been tweaked a bit along the way. There is no real problem pointing out where there can be improvements. In fact, it is often the case that major improvemnets to Church programs start this way... Let's see... Relief Society, Primary, YW/YM, MIA, YSA, SA, Welfare - ALL available to us today because someone Worried...

JohnShaw wrote:I wasn't called to the position I'm called to 'Don't Worry' - I advocate for positions I believe can and ought to be changed as long as the Doctrine of the Church is not impacted. As far as I'm concerned, I see no scriptural, or generally accepted authoritative pronouncement regarding funding. It is the way hat was presented when the budgeting changed from member-funded to Church-tithing-funded, and has been tweaked a bit along the way. There is no real problem pointing out where there can be improvements. In fact, it is often the case that major improvemnets to Church programs start this way... Let's see... Relief Society, Primary, YW/YM, MIA, YSA, SA, Welfare - ALL available to us today because someone Worried...

JohnShaw, I was responding to the comment regarding inaccurate Home Teaching reported in Student wards as students move in/out. That has no bearing on unit funding.

knealewj wrote:My preference would be to make the quarterly reporting months February, May, August, November.

I love the idea. It would also resolve a bug in the December Quarterly Report where the count of Primary children is based on their ages in January instead of in December.

russellhltn wrote:I'd suggest your stake president bring up the issue with the area athority.

I second that suggestion. If your calling is a ward calling, I would make the case to your Bishop. If you can convince him, ask him to forward the request to the Stake President. If he feels strongly enough about it, he will bring it up to the Area Authority. With a Bishop and Stake President strongly behind the idea, the Area Authority may also raise it up further. That is probably the only way that is going to happen.

knealewj wrote:My preference would be to make the quarterly reporting months February, May, August, November. This would be the most accurate reflection of who regularly attends meetings in each ward, as well as reducing the burden at other key times, such as tithing settlement, histories, Christmas & holidays, etc.

It's all relative, and perhaps this would be more accurate in your corner of the vineyard. I imagine that there will not be a solution that will be good for everyone.

For example, using this suggestion, we would lose budget money and would not have created our most recent ward. Hardly anyone is here in May and August, and many are gone the third week and a whole lot more are gone the fourth week of November.

I am sure some careful thought has been given to the months selected. And the process suggested earlier in this topic is correct for those who desire to report in different months. Your priesthood leaders recommend changes to their priesthood leaders, and so on, up the line of authority to those who make the actual decisions. It is a marvelous process to behold.

lajackson wrote:Hardly anyone is here in May and August.

Sounds like a university ward. Don't you have the same problem, though, for the current quarterly reports for June and December?

genman wrote:

lajackson wrote:Hardly anyone is here in May and August.

Sounds like a university ward. Don't you have the same problem, though, for the current quarterly reports for June and December?

It is not a university ward.

We would be trading one bad summer month of June for two in May and August. November would be a little bit worse than December, but not much.

Of the current Quarterly Report months of (Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec), the only one that is problematic from my perspective is Dec. Would be nice to not have Dec be a quarterly report month. Sounds like there is almost universal consensus on that much. Our Australian brother, knealewj, suggested Feb/May/Aug/Nov as an alternative to consider. For those in the northern hemisphere whose wards dwindle in the summer months, lajackson pointed out that May/Aug is problematic.

Another permutation to consider is Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct. One issue with those months would be Apr and Oct General Conference. However, that's probably not a big deal. Because the quarterly report, for example, reports average sacrament meeting attendance for the month. If the Quarterly Report was in Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, then the attendance numbers would just include one less Sunday in Apr and Oct. Should not be a big problem. We already live with the fact that the Quarterly Report months can have an inconsistent 4 or 5 Sundays in them. If the report was moved to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, then they would have 3 or 4 Sundays in them in Apr and Oct, since we would not be counting Conference Sunday in any of the numbers.

Other than the General Conference concern, which does not seem like a show stopper, does anyone see a potential problem with a Quarterly Report month change to be moved to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct?

genman wrote:. . . does anyone see a potential problem with a Quarterly Report month change to be moved to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct?

In our case, the July vacation month would simply replace the December vacation month. Other than that, it would not make much difference here.

lajackson wrote:In our case, the July vacation month would simply replace the December vacation month. Other than that, it would not make much difference here.

By "not make much difference", do you mean it is not better nor worse than the current months? Not sure I understand. In comparing the current set of Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec with a potential change to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, the month of Jul would replace the vacation month of Jun as the summer vacation month (in the northern hemisphere). Is Jun not a vacation month for your unit?

Some of the benefits of changing Dec to Oct is that it avoids the Dec vacation month, it avoids the year end tithing settlement period that is busy for clerks, and it avoids the Quarterly Report bug that mis-counts the number of children when the report is filed in the first week of January for the previous month in the previous year. There are lots of reasons why avoiding Dec for Quarterly Reporting would be beneficial. I can't think of a single substantive reason (other than Oct Conference discussed above) why using Dec for the Quarterly Report is a plus. Maybe I am missing something.

genman wrote:I can't think of a single substantive reason (other than Oct Conference discussed above) why using Dec for the Quarterly Report is a plus. Maybe I am missing something.

One obvious substantive reason is that the current reporting months are already implemented. Any change will have costs in making the change to all systems that are involved in submitting and processing quarterly reports, as well as systems that depend on quarterly reports (certainly the budget allowance program, and who knows how many other internal systems), as well as associated documentation and transitional communications.

I'm not saying that the cost of making the change is prohibitive (I have no idea what it would actually be), but it is certainly not insignificant, and so the benefits going forward would have to be deemed to be worth more than that cost.

genman wrote:By "not make much difference", do you mean it is not better nor worse than the current months?

Over the course of the year, the results would be about the same here either way.

I understand the December attendance concerns. As for it being a busy month, tithing settlement is supported here by a different set of folks than quarterly reporting, other than the bishop, who would review the quarterly report in early January and then the tithing report later in the month (if he chooses to wait that long).

lajackson wrote:As for it being a busy month, tithing settlement is supported here by a different set of folks than quarterly reporting

There are other things that happen at the beginning of the year that seem to require some effort, such as all of the Primary and Sunday School classes switch over. If there are merged or combined classes, that's usually when they change all of that, with the start of the new year, which requires some touch labor in MLS. Calendars are finalized for the new year, which in some cases requires some effort by some of the same people who would be involved in the Quarterly Report numbers. It just seems like a busy time, in general.

However, just thinking through how it would work if the Quarterly report months were changed to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct.... Not sure how to handle attendance rolls for Primary etc. Typically you print out a new roll at the beginning of a quarter, then after the Quarterly Report month is done collect all of the rolls to use for the report. Then print out new rolls for the next quarter. But that would no longer work that way. I think the printing of the rolls would still need to be done at the beginning of Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct as is currently done, but the collection of numbers would just be for the first month of the quarter, and give back the roll to complete attendance for the remaining months of the quarter. That may make some organizations feel like there's no need to keep attendance after the first month of the quarter. Not a whole lot different than current practice, though, of just using numbers for one of the months of the quarter. But at least you turn in the attendance roll sheet after filling it out, which feels like someone is looking at all of it.

That alone may be reason enough to leave it as is.

Why do we need to change counting months? It seems the easiest thing, to me, is to keep the way it is done now with reporting months, but to average counts across the whole quarter. This provides a larger sample with which to draw the average and helps smooth a larger or smaller than average attendance that can draw down the number.

You could average an average, or pick the best month of the quarter to report as well. There are simple tweaks that would make the process better.

Personally, I'm more concerned with Stakes that tend to be out of the 'Wasatch Corridor' where we spend significantly more money on activities than is required in other areas. A scout trip, or Girls Camp can be significantly more expensive when dozens of cheap, purpose-built camps are not available. Temple Trips for many wards take significant funds out of the Budget where that isn't the case in some areas.

I can't think of a system that would make it 'fair' and I think trying to make it so would cause more grief and effort than keeping it the way it is now. I do suggest, however, that there is a disparity and it can be significant in some cases.

I agree that it would be better to report on all the months or the best month of the quarter, rather than always the same four months every year. That makes sure that people are keeping records every month.

JohnShaw wrote:Why do we need to change counting months? It seems the easiest thing, to me, is to keep the way it is done now with reporting months, but to average counts across the whole quarter.

You may be right. But my main concern was not the lower numbers in some months, but rather the other issues with filing the report in early January for the last month in the previous year. There is at least one software bug that mis-counts the numbers on the report in that case, with no workaround way to correct it. And there are other year-end/new-year clerk-related activities that could be load-spread if the quarterly report for 4Q2012 was filed, say, by 15 Nov (based on Oct data) instead of being filed by 15 Jan (based on Dec data).

If the decision is made to average across all 3 months of the quarter, then I think we are stuck with 15 Jan filing date for 4Q2012. But if we continue with the concept of just using data from one month, then there should be no reason why we could not use 15 Nov filing date for 4Q2012.

The hardest part about going to a 3-month average vs the current 1-month average would likely be getting the home teaching and visiting teaching numbers for all 3 months to average.

genman wrote:But my main concern was not the lower numbers in some months, but rather the other issues with filing the report in early January for the last month in the previous year. There is at least one software bug that mis-counts the numbers on the report in that case, with no workaround way to correct it. [...] If the decision is made to average across all 3 months of the quarter, then I think we are stuck with 15 Jan filing date for 4Q2012. But if we continue with the concept of just using data from one month, then there should be no reason why we could not use 15 Nov filing date for 4Q2012.

That would take an even bigger software change then to fix the bug.

And isn't the bug you're talking about only with the website and not MLS? IOW, a valid work around is to use MLS?

russellhltn wrote:That would take an even bigger software change then to fix the bug.

How so? For report data months of Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, the filing of the report would be by the 15ths of months Feb/May/Aug/Nov. Thus all filing months are in the same year as the 4 data months. That makes the bug a don't-care, because we never span a year boundary before filing. That in-effect resolves the bug without a software change. By the way, the bug I'm talking about is the count of Primary children where if you file the report on 10 Jan 2013 for the month of Dec 2012 it uses the count of the children based on their ages on 1 Jan 2013 instead of their ages on 1 Jan 2012, which is used to determine whether or not they are in Primary in the data month of Dec 2012.

russellhltn wrote:And isn't the bug you're talking about only with the website and not MLS? IOW, a valid work around is to use MLS?

Good question. Not sure if it is website-only or both. If it is website-only, then yes using MLS to submit the Quarterly Report would be the workaround. But having to do the workaround either further increases the workload of the clerk (which was part of the issue), or more likely just corrupts the integrity of the quarterly report numbers submitted, as most clerks don't know about the bug.

genman wrote:

russellhltn wrote:That would take an even bigger software change then to fix the bug.

How so?

I listed some of my suggestions as to what the costs would be here. Fixing the bug likely is one fix in one software system. Changing the reporting month would affect multiple systems, as such it seems clear to me that it would cost far more.

genman wrote:But having to do the workaround either further increases the workload of the clerk (which was part of the issue),

Call it spin doctoring, but I find it hard to accept that for a job that is run just 4 times a year, to use the process that was the only process until about a year ago "increases the workload". You don't get the latest convenience, but such is the teething pains of new things.

genman wrote:or more likely just corrupts the integrity of the quarterly report numbers submitted

Let's see who reads the reports.

genman wrote:By the way, the bug I'm talking about is the count of Primary children where if you file the report on 10 Jan 2013 for the month of Dec 2012 it uses the count of the children based on their ages on 1 Jan 2013 instead of their ages on 1 Jan 2012, which is used to determine whether or not they are in Primary in the data month of Dec 2012.

This would be a plus as this is when you would have the most children in primary, due to you would have not yet lost anyone to YM/YW.

Gary_Miller wrote:This would be a plus as this is when you would have the most children in primary, due to you would have not yet lost anyone to YM/YW.

Not sure I understand your point. A child who turned age 12 on 2 Jan 2012 is still counted in the Primary attendance numbers thru Dec 2012.

I'm not sure that's the case but I'll take your word for it until I find out other wise.

Gary_Miller wrote:I'm not sure that's the case but I'll take your word for it until I find out other wise.

Oh wait. Don't take my word for it. I learned something else new today. Primary kids are only supposed to be counted if they are under age 12 as of the last day of the quarter. That means that nearly the entire Valiant 11 class should not be counted for the quarterly report as of December, although they all continue to go to the Valiant 11 class for the 2nd hour until the end of the year.

Having said all that, not sure how the January numbers bug has anything to do with this.

genman wrote:Oh wait. Don't take my word for it. I learned something else new today. Primary kids are only supposed to be counted if they are under age 12 as of the last day of the quarter. That means that nearly the entire Valiant 11 class should not be counted for the quarterly report as of December, although they all continue to go to the Valiant 11 class for the 2nd hour until the end of the year.

Which makes my statement above correct. The reason you don't count the 12 yr olds is because they only attend class, look at it as their Sunday School class. Their numbers are counted under the YM and YW organizations.

genman wrote:Having said all that, not sure how the January numbers bug has anything to do with this.

It shows that there is no bug. Classes populate based on age as of 1 Jan. The only time there would be a difference in numbers from 31 Dec to 1 Jan is when a child's birth date is on 1 January.

Gary_Miller wrote:It shows that there is no bug. Classes populate based on age as of 1 Jan. The only time there would be a difference in numbers from 31 Dec to 1 Jan is when a child's birth date is on 1 January.

The bug is on the other end of Primary. When they turn age 3.

genman wrote:The bug is on the other end of Primary. When they turn age 3.

I Still don't see the bug. The number is, total children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 years. For quarterly Budget Allowance, the primary attendance figure is calculated by multiplying the number of of children (ages 8 to 11) from membership records by the percent of Primary attendance from line 21 of the quarterly report. In actuality, baring move ins, your primary numbers would actually decrease throughout the year as the children turn 12 yrs old and join YM/YW.

Gary_Miller wrote:I Still don't see the bug. The number is, total children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 years.

Extreme example for illustration purposes: Let's say the Primary has only 1 child enrolled in all of Primary, say, in CTR 7 class in 2012 and they attend every month. But let's say there are 19 little children in the ward who turned age 3 in Feb 2012. With the current bug, the Quarterly Reports will show the following for the report months, which are typically filed on the 10th of the following month:

Mar 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Jun 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Sep 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Dec 2012 = 20 enrolled, 1 attending, 5% attendance <--- bug. should be 100%, not 5%

Gary_Miller wrote:For quarterly Budget Allowance, the primary attendance figure is calculated by...

That's interesting (although the Ward is the one with the budget allowance, not Primary; I've never heard of a ward where they adjust the Primary's allocated budget each quarter).

But that aside, fundamentally I wasn't really focused on the impact to Budget Allowance, just the integrity of the number. Whether a false number helps us or hurts us is a separate issue from whether or not it is true and accurate.

genman wrote:

Gary_Miller wrote:For quarterly Budget Allowance, the primary attendance figure is calculated by...

That's interesting (although the Ward is the one with the budget allowance, not Primary; I've never heard of a ward where they adjust the Primary's allocated budget each quarter).

Every ward in the Church. Part of the allowance to the stake (not the ward) is a small amount, exactly as Gary_Miller stated, in addition to the regular allowance based on sacrament meeting attendance. (There is also a little allowance for the youth and the YSA.) The stake then determines how much is passed along to the wards, hopefully most or all of it, but that is a discussion for another topic.

lajackson wrote:There is also a little allowance for the youth and the YSA.

This is turning into a discussion on budgets. Quarterly reports are not only for budgets. But okay. Is the allowance per youth more or less than the allowance per primary child?

genman wrote:

lajackson wrote:There is also a little allowance for the youth and the YSA.

This is turning into a discussion on budgets. Quarterly reports are not only for budgets. But okay. Is the allowance per youth more or less than the allowance per primary child?

That depends on the location. But in the US, the portion of the allowance per youth is double that for each of the (estimated) Primary children ages 8-11.

genman wrote: Quarterly reports are not only for budgets.

Correct however most of the thred was adjusting months to reflect higher numbers for budgets.

genman wrote:But okay. Is the allowance per youth more or less than the allowance per primary child?

The allowance break down is:

General Budget $12:00 (Sacrament meeting attendance)
Young Men $12.50 (YM attending priesthood meetings)
Young Women $12.50 (YW attending Sunday YW meetings)
Primary $6.50 (I gave how this is calculated earlier in post 33)
YSA $6.25 (Figure is calculated by multiplying the number of single adults (ages 18 to 30) from membership records by the percent of sacrament meeting attendance.)

genman wrote:

Gary_Miller wrote:I Still don't see the bug. The number is, total children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 years.

Extreme example for illustration purposes: Let's say the Primary has only 1 child enrolled in all of Primary, say, in CTR 7 class in 2012 and they attend every month. But let's say there are 19 little children in the ward who turned age 3 in Feb 2012. With the current bug, the Quarterly Reports will show the following for the report months, which are typically filed on the 10th of the following month:

Mar 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Jun 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Sep 2012 = 1 enrolled, 1 attending, 100% attendance
Dec 2012 = 20 enrolled, 1 attending, 5% attendance <--- bug. should be 100%, not 5%

Your December figures would not be correct the percent is "Children on line 20 attending Sunday Primary Meetings". Line 20 is " Total children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 Years" So you need to account for the attendance of the 3 yrs who attended nursery for the month of December in the figures.

lajackson wrote:

genman wrote:I've never heard of a ward where they adjust the Primary's allocated budget each quarter.

Every ward in the Church... The stake then determines how much is passed along to the wards

I may not have been clear. I didn't mean that the numbers for Primary have no impact on the budget allocation that is given to the stake, and that the stake gives to the ward. I meant from the Primary President's point of view, any particular quarter's numbers does not change her budget for that quarter. Most stakes and wards that I know of keep some amount of "leadership reserve" so that any realistic quarterly allocation fluctuations don't affect the ward's annual budget number and don't affect the ward organization's annual budget number. There may be an adjustment at the next year start, but not every quarter. The stake's allocation may bobble around a bit, but that does not necessarily (and does not usually) flow down to bother the Primary President about after each quarter.

So, I stand by my original statement: I've never heard of a ward where they bother the Primary President to adjust her allocated working budget after each quarter. At the ward organization level, the budgets are annual. Even if the stake allocation updates at the stake level are quarterly.

I have heard of wards where in September of the year, the Stake President tells all the Bishops to dramatically cut their budgets because of some other emergency that has come up in the Stake, but not because of quarterly report driven allocation flucuations.

Gary_Miller wrote:

genman wrote:Dec 2012 = 20 enrolled, 1 attending, 5% attendance <--- bug. should be 100%, not 5%

Your December figures would not be correct the percent is "Children on line 20 attending Sunday Primary Meetings". Line 20 is " Total children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 Years" So you need to account for the attendance of the 3 yrs who attended nursery for the month of December in the figures.

No. This is the quarterly report for Dec 2012. For quarters in 2012, line 20 is "Total children ages 3 (as of 1 Jan 2012) through 11 Years". Those 19 kids were not age 3 as of 1 Jan 2012. That is the bug. If you disagree that that is a bug, don't shoot the messenger, but you may want to object in this thread: Q4 Quarterly Report - Children incorrectly calculated.

genman wrote:No. This is the quarterly report for Dec 2012. For quarters in 2012, line 20 is "Total children ages 3 (as of 1 Jan 2012) through 11 Years". Those 19 kids were not age 3 as of 1 Jan 2012. That is the bug. If you disagree that that is a bug, don't shoot the messenger, but you may want to object in this thread: Q4 Quarterly Report - Children incorrectly calculated.

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH, my bad. Yep that is a problem. Where I don't mess with the quarterly report except for budget figures I had not noticed this. Looking at our report and the numbers in LDS.ORG it appears that we did not have this problem. Our new sunbeams were not in the figures.

Gary_Miller wrote:Looking at our report and the numbers in LDS.ORG it appears that we did
not have this problem. Our new sunbeams were not in the figures.

That's good to know. That confirms that the bug is not in MLS, just at LDS.org. You may want to post a response to the end of that bug thread. The originator said it was at least a bug at LDS.org, but he had not yet checked MLS to see if it also had the problem.