Friday 8 December

Budget Process

Melanie, from Finance Department

Melanie: New! This year (06-07) budgets are tracked by projects, upcoming year
(07-08) process will start in January. Send in project charter for
recommended projects.

Projects go into staff review, eventually board review.

Alan: what is the current budget?

Melanie:project costs $691K this year

Annette: planning regional at-large meetings, need to know what's
available, lots more interest than had expected, Africa, Euro, and Asia
all want to meet soon. Does $691K include external review cost?

Melanie: Cost categories within project costs:

• • AL training workshops
  • RALO meetings
  • AL outreach
  • outside review
  • ALAC meetings
  • users' guide and forums
  • AL policy
  • "improve participation by end users"

Annette: we've asked for detail breakdown, have not yet gotten it

Izumi: need clear process for budget planning and reporting

Alan: Kurt agreed to provide YTD info

Melanie: Budget approval vs. expenditure appproval: first you approve budget,
also need individual expenditures against budget approved. Board
priorities can change, constraints can change, managed at expenditure
level.

Alan: is there a no-approve threshold?

Melanie: No, everything needs to be approved. Stuff in budget is likely to be
approved, otherwise better to get approval before spending. Spending
policy doc has been sent out.

Siavash: who really approves? Denise.

Melanie: Will get info on how the $691K breaks down by category, what's ALAC
expenditure, what's ICANN in support of budget

Hong: how do categories apply, e.g., in a regional meeting do ALAC members
get charged to different proj than local participants? No need to
differentiate.

Melanie: Major categories are personnel costs, meeting costs (space, equipment,
...), other travel (not meeting), professional services,
administration. Each has subcategories.

Alan: do categories change next year? No.

Izumi: suggests using template. There's no standard template.

Alan: we have no experience with this, dunno what past costs are.

Melanie: Will have standard template for charter doc, will provide this year's
categories and amounts. Timeline for new budget in January will
include similar stuff.

Hong: time line for meeting planning is a problem, e.g., need to know
in time to get tickets to apply for visas, getting approvals has been
very slow.

Annette: budget in one place in the web site would be very helpful,
cannot tell what has been spent

Izumi: cannot find policy does on web site

Q: do RALOs roll up into ALAC?

Melanie: yes

Ombudsman

Frank: introduces Herb Way (sp?) who is adjunct when Frank isn't available

Frank: what is agenda?

John: ALS delays are resolved I think, can we verify that?

Frank: rarely publish reports, prefer to use alternative dispute
resolution to reach consensus, improve policy, ...

We're supposed to respond in 60 days, we haven't done that. Dismayed
on lack of progress on recommendations from Nov of 2005, more recently
seems to have been resolved.

Goal is to be as judicious as possible, maximize benefit to ICANN and
complainants. Pleased that things have improved. Suggestions for
administrative improvements: principle should be that if you turn
people down, you need to tell them why, and have process for an appeal.
Just saying no isn't adequate. Excessive delay is also unfair.

Seven months for process that is supposed to be taking two months is
unfair.

Should have way for applicants to provide more info into the process.

Ombudsman doesn't monitor progress or test and measure, deals with
specific issues at hand, and attempt to resolve them.

John: communication issues with staff are often part of the problem, can
you help

Frank: it's tricky, don't want to insert himself into policy processes

Can ombudsman help fix internal issues that cause fairness problems? Sure.

Alan: do recommendations go to both ALAC and staff?

Frank: if systemic or bylaw changes needed, that's filed with the chair,
work through liason and corp. secretary, formal process with timeline there

Izumi: thanks for work on complex issues

Annette: Can you help improve processes?

Frank: discussed various failure modes, we all want to avoid them