[
The 12% is fixed, but obviously the actual dollars increase annually as the rest of the budget increases annually and thus the greater the other budget items, the greater amount DVCM receives. The annual dues budget is legally required to be based on the estimated costs of all the items in the budget absent profit, but that does not necessarily exclude all profit. It is a matter of how the program is set up to be run, and in the DVC system, there are actually various "profit" incentives built into the system (one of which you have already mentioned):
1. All those people who work at the resorts in housekeeping, bell services, maintenance, front desk, etc., are employees of the Disney Parks and Resorts entity, not the DVC associations or any DVC entity. DVCM has an agreement with that Parks entity, called the Property Management Subcontract (mentioned din your annual dues) under which that Parks entity provides those employees to work at the the DVC Resorts and DVCM (and the associations) pay the equitable share of all the employee costs (wages, benefits, etc.) determined mainly by the total services to be provided for DVC reservations in relation to overall services. The Parks entity seem to have a lot of discretion in determining what that share should be, and even if DVCM pays the "costs" in the amounts billed to it that does not necessarily preclude Disney Parks from building in some extra profit, i.e, DVCM and the associations are still just paying the "costs" charged to DVC even if those "costs" have profit built into them by a a non-DVC entity.
2. Transportation is similar in that DVC is to pay tits share of the transpotation, including system and employee costs, based on likely percentage of use in relation to the whole, and again Disney itself is not necessarily prohibited from building in a profit into the amounts charged to DVCM and the associations.
3. Technically, central Member Services employees and the reservation systems are divided between two DVC companies, DVCM which its charge of all services relating to home resort reservations and BVTC which is in charge of non-home resort DVC reservations and all trade outs under the "DVC Reservation Component." Reality is that the employees and actual reservation computer and phione systems of the two companies are the same. The costs of all those MS services, offices, computer systems, etc. are paid from the following sources: (a) a $1 per member annual fee called the Disney Reservation Component in the budget, which amount goes to BVTC; (b) the fees charged by BVTC for trade-outs to non-DVC resorts; (c) breakage income (rental income of rooms still open 60-days or fewer out) which is divided as follows: first to offset annual dues up to 2.5% of the annual budget (excluding taxes); next to BVTC to cover all its costs plus 5% of those costs (a built-in profit); and third, all the remainder goes to DVCM to keep as profit or use for some of its costs; (d) the 12% of the total budget fee that goes to DVCM,
You should notice from that system of payment a few things. The annual budget dues do not vary according to the costs of central MS and the reservation systems. The $1 fee is always the same. The members always get no more than the amount of breakage income that equals 2.5% of the annual budget, while DVC entities get all the rest. The 12% management fee is always 12%. In other words, if the DVC entities spent only $100,000 total per year on central MS services and the reseveration systems, or spent $100 million, your total annual dues would still be the same.
The incentive created by the DVC system is that the less money DVC spends on central MS and reservation services, the more money the Disney entities get to keep as profit from breakage income and the 12% annual fee.