[Lnc-business] The Libertarian Party only has 2 full-time staffers?!
Ken Moellman
lpky at mu-net.org
Thu Jul 13 02:31:26 EDT 2017
I mostly want to say that working with the staff is both enjoyable and
productive. I know some people question why we have these folks on staff,
but I want to say they do a great job. They even put up with me. :)
Really, I think it's a question of priorities. Robert essentially said as
much.
I recently asked about adding merchandise to the LP Store. Wes informed me
that he was really busy and he might be able to get to it in a month or
so. That's fine, because LP Store merchandise is probably not at the top
of his priority list.
And so I do think this is simply a matter of priority. I know I end up
having to push things, repeatedly. Heck, I've had "learn perl" on my to-do
list for about 2 decades. I still haven't got to that yet. I have about
300 tabs open in Firefox (seriously) because those are all the things I
need to get back to at some point. Prioritization is the cause. It was
more important to roll out services and work on Ohio's ballot access, for
instance, so other things get pushed.
I do think it's probably more important to keep raising more money for the
party, but I also see the necessity to have a handle on expenses.
Somewhere, there's a balance here. I don't think it will take 2 decades to
get this information, but it probably is a good idea to explore ways to do
the accounting in a more efficient manner. If we make tasks more
efficient, then staff will have more time for other tasks.
And speaking of efficiency - I have to give a huge shout-out to Andy Burns
for helping LPKY re-launch the state party's website on the LP National
hosting platform. If you have a moment, check out https://www.lpky.org/
and see what you think. I would encourage other states to follow the same
path, because it will make them more efficient as well. I'd also be remiss
if I didn't plug the new email hosting LP National now offers to state
parties. Leveraging economies of scale, we become more efficient and spend
less time on back-office busy-work.
ken
On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 1:08 AM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:
> Starchild,
>
> At present, the LNC has Wes Benedict, Eric Dixon, and Robert Kraus
> full-time and based out of the Alexandria office. My understanding is
> that Nick Dunbar and Mat Thexton are also based out of that office,
> though not full-time. We also have a number of contractors working
> remotely, including Andy Burns, Lauren Daugherty, Jess Mears, Denise
> Luckey, Bob Johnston, and Elizabeth Brierly.
>
> Wes and I are in the midst of interviewing candidates for Press
> Secretary, which is anticipated to be full-time, and will be moving on
> to interviewing candidates for a Candidate Support Specialist shortly.
>
> Yours in liberty,
> Nick
>
> On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 8:05 PM, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you, Alicia. Coupled with the Convention Oversight Committee
> > experience you mention, this does raise questions. But beyond the issue
> of
> > getting the requested information, I was honestly shocked to hear that
> only
> > Wes and Robert are usually in the office full time. If their time is
> > valuable enough to justify what we're paying them, surely we should not
> be
> > having them routinely spend that time on tasks that lower-paid staffers,
> or
> > volunteers, could be handling.
> >
> > I would like to hear what Nick Sarwark as chair thinks about both the
> data
> > request compliance and how staff hours are apparently being allocated.
> >
> > Love & Liberty,
> >
> > ((( starchild )))
> > At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
> > RealReform at earthlink.net
> > (415) 625-FREE
> > @StarchildSF
> >
> >
> > On Jun 7, 2017, at 3:02 PM, Alicia Mattson wrote:
> >
> > Starchild,
> >
> > I have a lot of disagreements with your other ideas about how we should
> find
> > meeting locations and what arrangements are workable.
> >
> > However, I do agree with you that it should not take so long to provide
> the
> > LNC with basic data about the routine costs of our meetings, and provide
> > copies of the meeting space contracts showing which of those expenses are
> > required performance. You've been asking for some time, and it's not
> that
> > large of a data request.
> >
> > Recently, the Convention Oversight Committee was not in agreement about
> > whether to again use an outside professional to assist with the 2020 site
> > search, or whether to do it in-house with Robert Kraus as the point
> person.
> > When the issue of asking a staff member to take on such a time-consuming
> job
> > was discussed, the COC was told that when Wes tells the LNC that staff is
> > overloaded, that characterization does not necessarily include Robert
> Kraus,
> > and he was willing and able to add such a large project to his plate. If
> > that's the case, then I don't see why there isn't time to fulfill this
> data
> > request of yours in a more timely manner.
> >
> > -Alicia
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:34 PM, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Maybe I just haven't been paying attention. That's what LP operations
> >> manager Robert Kraus suggested when I spoke with him today and expressed
> >> surprise at his statement that he and Wes Benedict are the only paid
> staff
> >> working full time at our office. He said that if I'd read the report Wes
> >> presented at the last LNC meeting, I would have been aware of the
> situation.
> >>
> >> Robert told me this by way of explaining why he has not yet sent the LNC
> >> the details of how much we are paying for hotel meeting space, food and
> >> beverage obligations, staff airline flights, shipping costs, etc., in
> >> connection with LNC meetings. At the last LNC meeting in Pittsburgh in
> >> April, he told me in response to my asking him for this information
> that he
> >> would send it within a week or so. When I spoke with him today, he said
> that
> >> if I wanted him to stop what he was doing and send the information now,
> he
> >> would have to stop working on updating donor information to help us
> raise
> >> money, because he was the only person in the office right now. When I
> asked
> >> whether he could get us the meeting information prior to the next LNC
> >> meeting on August 19 (over 2 months from now, and 4 months from when he
> >> originally said he'd provide it), his response was "possibly".
> >>
> >> We have 11 people listed on our staff page (https://www.lp.org/staff/),
> >> not even counting individuals like our legal counsel and our FEC
> consultant
> >> who are kind of "on call", and although political director Carla
> Howell's
> >> contract wasn't renewed, the chair recently proposed adding an
> additional
> >> lower-level staffer. With that many folks on the roster, I don't
> understand
> >> why the two highest-paid individuals on staff are the only ones who are
> >> being paid full-time salaries and asked to staff the office largely by
> >> themselves. If this is true, it means that our highest-paid staffers are
> >> likely spending a significant part of their time doing routine office
> tasks
> >> like answering phone calls which could be handled by lower-paid
> staffers or
> >> even by volunteers.
> >>
> >> Robert did say he agreed with me that staff should not be asked to
> monitor
> >> or be involved in the party's social media outreach, which would
> potentially
> >> take a lot of their time away from other tasks. I also suggested that
> >> volunteers, instead of staff, could be the ones to research LNC meeting
> >> locations and present options to the LNC. Local activists in the cities
> >> where we're considering holding meetings would be the logical people to
> do
> >> this. If we don't have any local activists in a particular area able to
> help
> >> us find free or low-cost meeting venues there and help with details
> such as
> >> coordinating local transportation and folks able to host out-of-town
> >> visitors, it would beg the question of why we are meeting in that
> location
> >> instead of somewhere there is an active local Libertarian organization
> that
> >> can support us and which we in turn can support by seeking to arrange to
> >> have visiting LNC members make press appearances, attend local campaign
> >> events, do fundraising, etc., while in town.
> >>
> >> But if what Robert says is correct, it seems to me that we are not
> running
> >> our office efficiently. It also seems to me that LNC members being made
> to
> >> wait months and months after an LNC meeting to see what the actual
> expenses
> >> were for that meeting is unreasonable. Actually, we should be seeing
> such
> >> expenses listed before each meeting, since expenses like hotel meeting
> space
> >> fees, food and beverage obligations, staff airline flights, and shipping
> >> costs are in most cases known in advance. And we should be seeing
> estimates
> >> of these costs prior to even making a decision on where to meet, since
> such
> >> costs ought to factor into our decisions.
> >>
> >> Love & Liberty,
> >>
> >> ((( starchild )))
> >> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
> >> RealReform at earthlink.net
> >> (415) 625-FREE
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Lnc-business mailing list
> >> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> >> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
> >>
> >
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> >
> >
>
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