[Gnso-sc-budget] Cost of Montevideo team meeting in Saint Lucia on Valentine's Day

Sat Feb 17 20:59:26 UTC 2018

(responding in my personal capacity)

Thanks again, Marilyn. I actually have reason to believe based on desk research that at least some of the persons pictured in the tweet flew to Saint Lucia in business class, so we might need to quintuple the prices you found on Expedia... of course it is possible they upgraded with miles. Social media sleuthing of public profiles only tells me so much.

Regardless, the issue here is that the community is being asked to tighten our belt in FY19 — to accept no CROP, to accept the Additional Budgetary Request envelope shrinking, along with other more substantial cuts further down the line — but it doesn't yet seem like this same standard is being applied across the board. I appreciate we are still in FY18, so maybe things will be different next year, but it is certainly my perception that at the moment money is spent very freely internally. I continue to wonder about internal cost controls; I imagine budget owners have to manage spending, but as you highlighted Marilyn, a Vice President lives in Saint Lucia - I wonder if this is the same individual who is the budget owner?

I am perhaps venturing outside now the territory for which this Standing Committee was established, so I'll take my concerns here back to my Stakeholder Group to discuss. The message I will be communicating is that I have a lot more concerns about the GSE and its astronomical spend than I do about the Policy team and its relatively small spend.

Ayden

-------- Original Message --------
On 17 February 2018 4:09 PM, Marilyn Cade <marilynscade at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Ayden
>
> I really appreciate your thoroughness on understanding the linkages between spending in one space and its implications for the overall budget.
>
> However, I will note that the gTLD Policy Council and its councilors also need to be part of the solution to cost cutting. Last year, one councilor's travel -- airfare only -  for one trip was $7,000.  I am not picking on any particular traveler, but I just admit that my eyebrows had trouble finding my forehead when I saw that individual expense.
>
> However, I offer that only so that as this WG looks hard at cost and ideas for how to have balanced reductions that are across the board of impact to ICANN, all of us are also able to advise and help our own constituencies/communities to understand areas of cuts and implications, so that larger discussions can occur within ICANN's communities.
>
> Now for a follow up to your post, which I really appreciate seeing.  I do not follow ICANN's twitter account, especially now with such limited time as I look for a place to live while the house is being reconstructed. So, I looked at this quickly, and then I did the following:
>
> I went to Expedia and looked at airfare costs and length of travel for three of the countries to St. Lucia.
>
> I am aware that the V.President lives in St. Lucia, however, that cannot be an excuse to bear unusual costs/and time of travel.
>
> To travel from Montevideo itself to St. Lucia:  19 hours + is the shortest trip, going through Miami, Florida; coach cost [I am not sure that business class is available to St. Lucia itself]; $20XX.00
>
> To travel from Rio, Argentina to St. Lucia:  17 hours minimum, stops in Miami; just over $2,000 coach
>
> To travel from Lima, Peru to St. Lucia:  much longer trip, stops in Miami, $2,XXX.XX. coach
>
> Magic learning:  at least all three of these travelers had to travel to Miami, Florida and had a few hours layover.  The airfare for coach for these trips was around $1,000 + per traveler, round trip.
>
> One traveler had to have at least two stops and maybe three stops in order to travel to St. Lucia.
>
> So, just "off the top of my head", and I was also very concerned when the Intercessional for the non contracted party house was held in Iceland last year -- with a rather significant cost for ICANN staff to have to travel there to do the facilities planning, etc., some travel costs seems to be truly unnecessary.
>
> The community does not want to micro manage such areas, but logic must prevail.
>
> It makes no sense to send 7-10 people to St. Lucia, when a much shorter trip and lower costs could have brought them to Miami.
>
> OR, as so often ICANN staff are limited in their engagement /attendance at the ICANN meetings, such events could be held at the closest in time ICANN meeting, thus serving a dual purpose of engagement with the broader community; engagement with each other, and improving the broadened understanding of ICANN overall.
>
> In my own personal budget comments, I will be recommending that the Board reduce their workshops from 6 to 4 -- with 3 held at the ICANN meetings, as 3 are now, and only one outside of that -- and that one be AT the ICANN offices.
>
> I do not think that the gTLD Policy Council /e,g.this working group should be looking at all aspects, but of course, it must look at what affects the policy development aspects of gTLD policy coordination, and related areas.
>
> Many of the cuts seem quite arbitrary, with some aspects seemingly unaffected, but others that are of broader impact, dramatically cut.
>
> I will have to spend much more time on the overall budget, but I thought this little spot analysis of travel costs to St. Lucia quite amazing. when a more affordable option seems rather simple.  A meeting room in a hotel for 10 people is not a prohibitive expense.
>
> Marilyn
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Gnso-sc-budget <gnso-sc-budget-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 11:37 AM
> To: gnso-sc-budget at icann.org
> Subject: [Gnso-sc-budget] Cost of Montevideo team meeting in Saint Lucia on Valentine's Day
>
> [From Twitter](https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FICANN%2Fstatus%2F964517026298396674&data=02%7C01%7C%7C27e10992763540a292c708d5755ba4a5%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636543958813232593&sdata=wzd2%2FZh0WTjBFf1o6eL%2B3RefZHQ5pP%2FAfhniL4T2Phw%3D&reserved=0) I gather that the Montevideo office is hosting an all-hands meeting in Saint Lucia, some 5,400 km away, this week. The tweet indicates that 10 ICANN staffers are in attendance and names the countries where they are based in. However, in the photograph shared on Twitter I recognise a Stakeholder Engagement Manager who is based in the United States. The US is not name dropped in the tweet like other countries are, so it is possible there are more than 10 staff in attendance, perhaps not from the Montevideo office.
>
> I do not understand why Saint Lucia on Valentine's Day was chosen as the venue when ICANN has an office in Montevideo and most of the staff in attendance will be traveling from neighbouring countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, if not based in Uruguay itself.
>
> To help contextualise the cost of CROP and other community support which is being cut, I would find it helpful to be provided with a figure of how much this meeting is budgeted to cost on average per staff member in attendance, and what the average cost of a supported CROP traveler was in FY18. I understand from the ICANN staff travel policy (posted in FCM and viewable to constituency travellers) that staff fly business class on journeys over eight hours, which would apply to most of the staff in attendance, though perhaps the Budget Owner has asked staff to fly in a lower class of travel?
>
> [staff_travel_policy.jpg]
>
> I do not intend to scrutinise every team retreat that is held, or to try to determine the cost of everything that ICANN is tweeting out, and I hope this message does not come across that way. I think there is value in face-to-face meetings like this one. A lot of value.
>
> But my perception is that the community has been unfairly targeted for cuts in the FY19 Budget when the bulk of the budget is being spent on personnel costs and professional services. I understand that some staff support the community, but (and I am speaking in my personal capacity here) I think the SCBO has an obligation to look at ICANN's overall patterns of spending for effectiveness and efficiency. We should hold ourselves to this same standard, too, and make sure we as the GNSO (and the Council) similarly are effective and efficient with resources.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Ayden Férdeline
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