[Ec-ncuc] Travel funding

[William Drake]

Hi MM

I agree that use of funds scratched out through grant apps etc on travel should remain exceptional.  I also think we should have a proper EC oversight and shared responsibility for raising and managing funds.  This doesn't imply any change in you being the one who maintains the account and cuts the checks when needed (unless you are looking to offload that).  Rather, we could have someone from the EC head a small finance comm, parallel to the hoped for comms on other functional tasks, who would lead on identifying and pursuing any fundraising options as well as the ICANN budget process with our annual request. You'd be a permanent member of said comm and hold the purse strings.  So no change to most of your role other than it'd be embedded in a collective framework and there'd be others to help digging for gold.

Sound right to all?  Amendments, alternatives...

Bill

On Dec 19, 2012, at 1:31, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> Speaking as Treasurer:
> 
>> Yes, as Bill says this idea of actually having guaranteed  travel
>> slots is such a recent luxury (first applied in Toronto) that  we
>> haven't actually worked out how to deal with it yet.
> 
> [Milton L Mueller] See below for my suggestion as to how to deal with it.
> 
>>> And NCUC has some money of its own, which the EC may decide to use
>>> for travel funding (previously, this was most of what NCUC funds were
>>> used for).
> 
> [Milton L Mueller] In  my view, ICANN's decision to handle travel for a given number of NCUC and NCSG members should be taken as a first-order budget constraint regarding travel support. In other words, as a rule the Constituency and the SG should send to meetings only those people supported by ICANN; anything over and above that should be considered a highly exceptional circumstance. The reason is that NCUC funds should support capacity building of the constituency itself and its projects. Routine support of travel will dissipate our bank account quite rapidly; sending 2 or 3 people per meeting per year could cost $10-20,000, for example. Until our Treasury is about 2-3 times what it has been, I don't think we can consider that. And adding 2 or 3 to the 5 or 6 already supported by ICANN, Nomcom, etc. is not that great an incremental improvement. Unless, as I said before, there are exceptional circumstances. 
> 
>> How much money does NCUC have? Do we have a budget somewhere?
> 
> [Milton L Mueller] We actually don't have the EC plan and approve a budget; maybe we should. Typically we look at how much we have and make decisions about what to do on a case by case basis. In the past, the amount of money was so small that it hardly mattered, and that process worked. 
> 
> Obviously we are dealing with inflows and outflows, not fixed stocks. Our average balance is about $45,000 in the past year. It goes up when major donations (usually for ICANN meeting pre-events) come in, down when we make expenditures. 
> 
> 
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