[WP1] Budget veto questions

Sun Jul 26 04:48:31 UTC 2015

Dear All,
Jonathan's point is valid. However, the consequence of cutting the Budget
by some percentage need to be carefully  studied before making final
decision .Perhaps we could freeze the budget for some period  but not for
full year to the amount of previous year with the proviso that if the issue
is not resolved then we apply the decrease option afterward retroactively
for the full year. One again IANA Budget should be treated separately
Regards
Kavouss

2015-07-26 5:07 GMT+02:00 Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh at gmail.com>:

> Jordan
> In view of delicacy and sensitivity of IANA budget ( now seemed to be
> separately treated) I support the suggestion provided that the same
> criteria equally applies to IANA budget and does not adversely affect the
> proposed budget submitted by PTI for subsequent year in the sense that
> ICANN would not be able to block and increase if proposed by PTI
> Regards
> Kavouss
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 26 Jul 2015, at 11:30, Jordan Carter <jordan at internetnz.net.nz> wrote:
>
> Thanks Jonathan, Thomas
>
> Let's all remember that the threshold for a second veto is higher (75%)
> than for a first veto (66%). So there is already a presumption that in the
> end, the Board settles the budget and there are escalating mechanisms.
>
> Jonathan's ending point, that we need a veto with teeth that puts pressure
> on the Board to resolve a budget the community can accept, is important.
>
> There are two options that have been floating around - one is the hard
> stop after two vetoes (then ICANN is on the previous year's budget), the
> other is no cap on the number of vetoes.
>
> Paris discussion showed a pretty broadly held view that limiting the
> number of vetoes was the right thing to do.
>
> Any of these arrangements can work, it's just a case of the tradeoffs.
>
> If we put in the rules that after two vetoes the previous year's budget
> prevails, we benefit from clarity and certainty - and less people's time
> taken up by repeating the veto process with all that it will entail.
>
> The downside is that in situations that Jonathan described, the resources
> for projects people may not support is already in place. But I can't see a
> way for the veto to really resolve that sort of situation no matter how it
> is done, so it's perhaps not fair to call it a downside.
>
> So: two veto limit, leading to previous year's budget if the second veto
> is cast.
>
> In terms of Jonathan's final point, triggering other actions: at the
> moment the draft leaves it just implicit that the community might take
> other actions.
>
> We could add a more concrete trigger - this is just a suggestion:
>
> If there's a second budget veto cast (75% of the votes, remember, are
> required), it automatically counts as a successful petition for considering
> the recall of the entire ICANN Board.
>
>
> Personally speaking I think we should just leave it implicit, but am
> making that suggestion to test others' views.
>
> cheers
> Jordan
>
>
>
>
> On 24 July 2015 at 18:16, Thomas Rickert <rickert at anwaelte.de> wrote:
>
>> Hi Jonathan,
>> good points.
>>
>> I agree the risk of disagreement between the Board and the Community on
>> budget questions exists. Not so sure the risk of the Board being stubbern
>> is so realistic.
>>
>> - Not cutting the budget got a lot of traction in Paris
>> - There was a lot of traction on the last call (I sensed) that high
>> voting thresholds limit the risk of going ping pong so unlimited vetos are
>> rather a theoretical risk
>> - A compromise could be to explicitly allow for a vote of non-confidence
>> if the issues are not resolved after two vetoes. The community could then
>> invoke a vote of non-confidence, but they could also take a third or fourth
>> round should it deem that to be appropriate.
>>
>> Thomas
>>
>> ---
>> rickert.net
>>
>>
>> Am 23.07.2015 um 22:22 schrieb Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at actonline.org>:
>>
>>  Folks
>> Before we do another draft I wanted to throw out a couple scenarios to
>> get us thinking about what we’re really after with this community power. In
>> Paris we seemed to have reached the consensus that we didn’t want the board
>> to be able to just rest on last year’s budget even though we didn’t want to
>> cut it arbitrarily. I thought we were still there on the latest WP1 call
>> but this morning on the CCWG call, we seemed to go off the rails and folks
>> seem fine with “unlimited round trips” because now it seems sufficient to
>> operate on last year’s budget. I’m afraid that the tight timeframes
>> together with competing issues have gotten us confused on this topic. I
>> thought I would write since this is a power I could imagine us
>> realistically using.
>>
>>  So here’s a scenario: the board approves a million dollars for some
>> internet governance conference. The following year, the community is trying
>> to encourage the board and staff to stick to it’s knitting. The board comes
>> back with a $500k allowance to support the conference the following year.
>> The community vetoes that budget resulting in a continuing resolution to
>> use last year’s budget of $1 mil. The board stands firm through numerous
>> community vetoes and, in the end, gets twice the money they proposed for a
>> program the community wanted eliminated.
>>
>>  Another scenario is one involving the need for an across the board cut
>> in the budget because revenues have not met projections.  The community
>> wants a 20% cut to restore the surplus but the board determines that a 10%
>> cut will suffice because they believe revenues will go back up. Again, a
>> series of unanswered vetoes results in NO cut to the budget.
>>
>>  So I guess my point is that there are several instances where the
>> community would NOT be satisfied by constraining the board to the prior
>> year’s buget. That’s why we were talking about decreasing it (which we
>> agreed would have unpredictable results) but there *was* a determination
>> that we should break the log jam in favor of the community position.
>>
>>  Given the absence of a community budget creation authority, the veto
>> needs to have teeth and I return to the notion that the number of round
>> trips needs to be limited and somehow include an incentive for the board to
>> comply which might include beginning other proceedings. Steve’s point on
>> the call is that the community could choose to wait until the 4th veto to
>> escalate etc. but that starts to be a long time on last year’s budget in
>> which many commitments could be made from which it would be difficult to
>> extract.
>>
>>  I continue to believe we need measures to break the log jam.
>>
>>  Jonathan
>>
>>
>>
>> Jonathan Zuck
>>
>> *President*
>>
>> 202-331-2130 X 101 | jzuck at actonline.org | Skype: jvzuck
>>
>>
>>
>> ACT | The App Association
>>
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>
>
> --
> Jordan Carter
>
> Chief Executive
> *InternetNZ*
>
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