Boys & Girls Club offers cash alternative

By Tony Biasotti, tbiasotti@VenturaCountyStar.com
June 23, 2006

The deal has something for everyone — a $1.3 million waterfront home in Oxnard for the price of a $150 ticket in a raffle that will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

The Boys & Girls Clubs could get as much as $2.7 million to help it expand. The company building the home gets publicity and community goodwill for its new development.

The winner of the Nov. 4 raffle, however, might be better off taking the grand prize alternative — $1 million cash — instead of the $1.3 million home.

It's a huge windfall to win one of these increasingly common home raffles, said Chris Boynton, a certified public accountant with Hamilton, Boynton & Associates in Simi Valley.

"It's just not as great as it seems," he said.

That's because the winner would have a one-time income tax bill of about $540,000, and annual property taxes of about $16,000, Boynton said. The smart move, unless the winner is already fairly wealthy, would be to either sell the home or take the $1 million cash option offered by the Boys & Girls Clubs.

"You'd have to take out a mortgage to pay the taxes, and $540,000 is a pretty healthy mortgage payment," Boynton said. "When you add the extra expenses of having a big house, like utilities and property taxes, that's pretty heavy duty for the average Joe."

On the other hand, if that average Joe were to sell the house, he could pay the taxes from the proceeds and walk away with at least $600,000, Boynton said.

The home being raffled is one of the high-end models in the Seabridge development, a 700-home project now under construction near Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard. It will be a two-story, 3,195-square-foot home with a 35-foot boat dock, according to the developer, D.R. Horton.

The Boys & Girls Clubs hopes to sell 18,000 tickets at $150 each. D.R. Horton will donate part of the value of the home, but Boys & Girls CEO Tim Blaylock would not say exactly how much.

Blaylock could not be reached on the phone Thursday. He outlined the fund-raising plan in an e-mail.

Blaylock said the Boys & Girls Clubs chose a home raffle because both the Palos Verdes Arts Center and the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum have held successful drawings in the past few years.

Raffles are legal in California only when run by a registered nonprofit group like the Boys & Girls Clubs, said Greg Brose, an attorney in the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. At least 90 percent of the gross receipts have to be used for charity, he said.

Blaylock said the Boys & Girls Clubs will split the proceeds between its endowment fund, maintenance for its buildings, and special programs.

The Boys & Girls Clubs has 14 locations in Oxnard and Port Hueneme, including three full-service clubs. The clubs offer academics, sports, nutrition, art and other after-school programs for kids who might otherwise have nowhere to go.

About 6,700 children use the clubs, Blaylock said, and the group hopes to expand to serve 10,000.

Tickets for the home raffle are on sale now, and everyone who buys one by July 15 will be entered in an "early bird drawing" on Aug. 5. The early bird prizes include a 2007 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy, and the winners will still be eligible for the grand prize. The final drawing will be Nov. 4.

Order forms are available at http://www.tenthousanddreams.org or by calling 1-866-720-2582.