[Lnc-business] seeking cosponsors for EPCC and Contract Review motion

[Daniel Wiener]

Alicia, in general this sounds like a reasonable proposal.  But is there a
reason you want a mail ballot on this now, rather than taking it up at the
LNC meeting in Orlando next month?  I'm not aware of anything happening
between now and then which this proposal would affect.

Dan

On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 8:30 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Many of you may recall that in the last LNC meeting, I made a motion to
> modify the EPCC's role in director-level contract review.  It received a
> majority vote, but due to several abstentions, the vote wasn't sufficient
> to adopt it without having given previous notice.
>
> Based on good feedback during and after the meeting, I've made some
> additional changes to the proposal, and at this time I'm asking for
> co-sponsors for the attached motion.
>
> Our current policy has a number of defects:
>
>    - It requires that a proposed director-level employment contract must
>    be reviewed by the EPCC, but it doesn't say that any EPCC objections or
>    concerns have to be fixed.  In theory a chair could say, "They reviewed it
>    and didn't like it, but I don't have to listen to them, so I signed it."
>    - Our policy requires that the contract be circulated to the LNC, but
>    it doesn't specify that this ought to happen before the contract is signed
>    so that any problems identified by the LNC can be addressed before
>    execution.
>    - Our policy requires that the general counsel review it, but it
>    doesn't require that the general counsel's advice be shared with those
>    conducting the review.  It could be that only the chair knows what the
>    general counsel's advice was.
>    - Compensation is a non-trivial percentage of our expenses.  The
>    director-level contracts have substantial financial impacts well beyond
>    that person's base pay rate, and we just need more eyes reviewing those
>    offerings.  Contracts can offer additional benefits beyond the standard
>    benefits in the employee manual.  I pointed out recently that the wording
>    of bonus structures in recent years has been changed such that having a
>    good quarter at the beginning of a year can create a bonus multiplier
>    effect -- one good quarter can create bonuses in other quarters even if the
>    other quarters were terrible.  The prior wording did not contain that
>    flaw.  More eyes reviewing the contract will reduce the chances of missing
>    that kind of detail.
>
> My proposal would:
>
>    - make it clear that the LNC must see the contract before it is signed.
>    - require that General Counsel advice be shared with the EPCC and LNC.
>    - require that a review body approve the contract, not just have a
>    chance to review it with no power to require changes.  That review body can
>    either be the EPCC (we did create them to play this sort of role), or if
>    the EPCC members were cantankerous and played the role of
>    3-person-roadblock to hiring person X rather than finding functional
>    contract language, a Chair could go around the EPCC and have the entire LNC
>    approve it instead.
>    - change how the EPCC is appointed.  It is currently appointed by the
>    LNC Chair, but since the EPCC would have a role of approving the chair's
>    proposal, that committee should be selected by the LNC rather than be
>    appointees of the Chair.
>    - disallow the LNC Chair from serving on the EPCC, where he would be
>    one of three votes approving his own proposal.
>
> An additional feature is that because the LNC must see the contract 10
> days before it is signed, if the EPCC were to initially approve a contract
> but the LNC had a serious objection to it, there would still be time for
> the LNC to use an email ballot to override the decision of the EPCC.
>
> There is a term in this proposal that I want to point out.  If the LNC
> approves the contract, it requires "an affirmative vote from a majority of
> the fixed membership of the LNC."  If there are no LNC vacancies, and
> everyone votes, then this is the same requirement as a majority vote.  The
> "fixed membership" clause says that the denominator for calculating a
> majority isn't just the number of ballots cast.  The denominator is the
> total number of LNC seats including any vacant ones, regardless of how many
> might have abstained from the vote.
>
> Co-sponsors?
>
> -Alicia
>
>
>
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> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>


-- 
*"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we
guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we
compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if
this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare
the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or
experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it
disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key
to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it
doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”*
-- Richard Feynman (https://tinyurl.com/lozjjps)
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