[Lnc-business] Transparency and the budget

Sat Dec 3 19:08:04 EST 2016

Ken, first, thank you for all your work.  Second, I think your suggestion
that the LNC utilize, at least during the main petitioning season, a paid
project manager, has a lot of merit and should be seriously considered.

Joshua A. Katz

On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 2:01 PM, Ken Moellman <ken.moellman at lpky.org> wrote:

>
> During Ballot Access I was running about 30 hours per week.  When Ohio was
> rolling I was going up to Columbus a lot.  For the first time in my decade
> of involvement and action in the LP, my wife said it was a ridiculous
> amount of time and someone should get paid for doing that.
>
> ---
>
> Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
> LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative
> LPKY Judicial Committee
>
>
>
> On 2016-12-02 15:38, Wes Benedict wrote:
>
> An interesting experiment would be for each LNC member to track its hours
> for one month according to the Functional Allocation of Expenses procedures
> requested. It would give you some hands on experience in dealing with the
> reality that we switch categories often every few minutes, like from:
>
> 40 - Admin (this conversation)
>
> 88 - Outreach (LNC photos on the website)
>
> 80 - Media or 85 - Member Communications (delivering the message the LNC
> wants)
>
> 85 - Member Communication (recording the termination of the membership of
> person who disapproves of LNC buying meat)
>
> 40 Admin? or 55 Branding? or 70 - Ballot Access?  - approving staff
> getting a poster about ballot access printed.
>
> I literally switch tasks every few minutes. Trying to track this in detail
> is very tough.
>
> I really would like to see the LNC track themselves for a month. You'll
> find out how hard this is after one hour.
>
>
>
> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232 <(202)%20333-0008>, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>
> On 12/2/2016 3:21 PM, Joshua Katz wrote:
>
> 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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