[council] Revised Community Travel Support Procedure for FY09

[Norbert Klein]

Dear GNSO Colleagues,

as I had not been able to participate timely in the discussions, and then 
seeing that the regulations had many “open ends” (to put it mildly), I was 
reluctant to join in for a while. But I changed my mind and write now, after 
having read the following strong words from Philip:

= =
Alan is entirely correct about mixed messages.

Lets be clear this is a VERY BAD travel policy indeed.
It is deflecting effort from policy to admin,
it ignored the good advice given during public comments,
it is divisive,
it is mean,
it is confused,
it is mathematically inept.

Is the Council and its policy making activity worth more than 0.3% of ICANN's 
total budget? Clearly not in the eyes of ICANN management.

We should condemn this policy as a Council and request Board reconsideration.
= =

Of course I read also the many other contributions. 

For Cairo, I think our chair (and some others) will have to muddle through 
with the present regulations, I hope with some flexibility to take care – for 
example – of such questions as Kristina's whether “shared use be permitted if 
no one person needs full support.” I think this is a very practical question, 
considering our complex realities which were raised in some of the “good 
advice given during public comments.”

For the future, I hope that the following two points will get attention. They 
both relate to a responsible use of scarce financial resources – even if the 
travel subsidy is only 0,3% of the budget, which is scarce enough.

1. Pricing

For the Delhi meeting, I had to have a protracted and difficult discussion 
with the ICANN office to get permission ( ! ) to save travel expenses by 
buying my ticket locally. It was not just saving a few dollars. Instead of 
accepting the ICANN ticket priced at US$2,577.70 (“fare is now USD 2577.70 no 
lower fares available”), I was, after many mails back and forth, allowed 
( ! ) to buy a ticket for US$695, though I finally bought it for only US$665 
(without permission for this additional saving, as my clever and concerned 
local agent found, on their own initiative, a seat which had became available 
locally when another person canceled – only a local agent can do this in a 
timely manner).

This was a completely legal purchase (for the same airline/flight number for 
which ICANN wanted to send me a ticket almost four times as expensive). My 
ticket was open to change the dates (on the same airline) - the ICANN ticket 
dates would have been fixed/non changeable. 

Later ICANN also conceded that my price was possible, because I am living in 
a “soft currency” country, and for local purchases (with hard currency) these 
prices exist. There are quite a number of other GNSO, ALAC, and ICANN Board 
members who live in “soft currency” countries. I saved 1,900 dollars on one 
fairly short trip from Cambodia to India. If you multiply such amounts for 
other “soft currency” supported ICANN travelers...

Two surprises: 

a) I was later informed that my approach would probably not be acceptable for 
auditing. If the auditing does not allow to save US$1,900 on one person's 
single trip, the auditing principles are obviously wrong and have to be 
changed. 

When I see how difficult it is made to save huge amounts of travel funds, the 
good argument that we have to set priorities to save resources just does not 
sound real. (The wisdom of some Cambodian colleagues says: “Surely the 
interest to have central control on tickets involves some kickbacks.” It is 
not easy – in our context – to convince people that this is NOT so, when it 
is not encouraged to make huge saving with a decentralized approach.)  

b) This is more on a personal level, due to my naiveté: I asked if some of the 
US$1,900 I had saved from being spent on my ticket could be made available 
for my hotel costs in Delhi – but I was informed this would be unfair to 
other participants (for whom expensive tickets had been paid, I assume, no 
questions asked).


2. Routing and Timing

I heard that some people who had received ICANN travel support (not GNSO) were 
made to leave before an ICANN meeting was over, because there was no 
departing flight available in the evening of the closing day. (If this is a 
rumor without a basis in reality – my apologies.) When I heard this, I got 
again the impression that the policy behind is guided by “top down central 
administration” and not by a “bottom-up approach starting with local reality 
and its needs.” To bring a person for thousands of dollars to a meeting, and 
then cut the time short to save a bit at the end, seems not to give due 
attention to the purpose of the whole affair.

I dare to add here some elements of ICANN travel regulations which were sent 
to me at another occasion, which said something such as: “only tickets for 
direct connection to the event, and for the start and end time of the event” 
can be issued. I think that most of us, working as volunteers without pay on 
ICANN affairs, are busy also with different other obligations and tasks and 
interests, and I would like to suggest that we should not need special 
permits to come a day earlier to take care of jet lag, or to stay a day or 
two longer as some ICANN board members do also sometimes, or to do our own 
re-routing (of course always taking care of any additional payments, if 
necessary, on our own account).


Conclusions

My best wishes to handle Cairo.

For the time after Cairo, the Council should enter into a serious 
reconsideration of a travel support policy draft – taking account of all 
kinds of practicalities, and consider concerns for a “central travel agency” 
operation only as a support and not as a control function – once we have 
clear principles and procedures.

I do not intend to enter into a discussion whether GNSO members or WG 
Coordinators or competent Constituency representatives in WGs are “more 
important” - I am just surprised about the lack of clarity of basic common 
purpose, which becomes obvious in the present discussion. Even after the GNSO 
reform , the WGs will not be born by themselves. Not to assure that the GNSO 
Council can function well – representing ICANN constituencies – having the 
important function to discuss policy priorities, also for the creation of WGs 
and for the further handling of their results, cannot be in the interest of 
anybody committed to ICANN operating with a bottom-up approach. 


Norbert Klein