[Lnc-business] Transparency and the budget

Sat Dec 3 19:16:20 EST 2016

I tried to like your email.

I've been on FB too much

On Saturday, December 3, 2016, Joshua Katz <planning4liberty at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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.org <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wes.benedict at lp.org');>facebook.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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>>
>>
>>
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>>
>

-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
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