[Lnc-business] Transparency and the budget

[Joshua Katz]

I pointed out earlier the concern I am expressing here, but I did it
briefly and without much explanation, because I wanted to know if, in fact,
I have misunderstood, if I was making a big mistake, and if my concerns
were unfounded.  All of that remains perfectly possible, but the fact that
I have not received an explanation making those points suggests to me that
perhaps I am onto something important.

80% of the proposed budget is accounted for by administration and
compensation.  A member seeing that might be excused for believing that the
national party simply consumes 80 cents of each dollar received.  This
would be a mistake, but it would be an understandable mistake - and one we
can easily prevent.

This member would be mistaken because compensation is not consumption.
Staff does a lot of things.  Staff work is a very large proportion of what
the national party does.  When we see an affiliate support line with a
rather small number on it, it conceals the fact that staff spends a good
amount of time supporting affiliates.  Since staff time is split between
different functions, we have a timesheet policy allowing staff time to be
billed to different lines.

So this brings us to, perhaps, a bigger problem:  even knowing this, the
member reading this budget has no idea how much of staff time is spent on
what projects.  Perhaps most importantly, neither does the LNC.  Certainly
the LNC is not giving direction as to how staff time should be spent.  We
have, essentially, created a black box into which we place 50% of the
annual budget.

A budget that breaks down staff time the way it is to be billed, and that
funds staff time from line items, also allows members, at a glance, to see
what priorities the national party has, and to know easily and quickly what
staff is doing.  Most importantly, it assures members that these priorities
are being set by those they elect to make such decisions, not being left to
the ED, or to chance, or to "whatever is most pressing at the moment."  I
have said before that my most pressing

After all, functional and operational transparency require not only that
members see and hear us talking, but that we are talking about the things
that members need to know.  If we make ourselves open, but exercise no
control over fully half the budget, we are not transparent.

This is not at all hard to fix.  We know the proposed total compensation.
We may modify it at our meeting.  A portion of that, perhaps 20%, should be
left in the compensation black-box.  The LNC can decide what we'd like to
prioritize by setting percentages to various functional lines.  The
remaining compensation multiplied by the percentage gives the amount to be
moved from compensation to the appropriate line item.

Maintaining is also easy.  Simply fund compensation from the various lines,
in accordance with the timesheets received.  The Treasurer can, in turn,
keep an eye on the lines, and see if some lines are over or under funded.
If so, the board can decide how to react - by amending the budget, or by
instructing staff to respect the priorities set.

I am not known as a transparency champion.  In large part, I have a
different notion of transparency from many of my colleagues.  The above
shows the sort of transparency I worry about.  I hope, though, that my
colleagues who are known as transparency champions will join me on this
issue, and join me in requesting that we not place 50% of our annual
expenditure in a black-box line item such that members cannot use the
budget to determine what it is that we do, and we cannot use the budget to
govern the organization.

For my part, I am disinclined to vote for a budget that black-boxes 50%,
and that charges 80% to administration.

Joshua A. Katz
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