Anthony wrote:
On Nov 18, 2007 1:34 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 17, 2007 7:54 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The budget wasn't met last time either, was it? Looking back it seems like less than half the budget was raised during the entire fiscal year, and the foundation only spent about half of that ($1.4 million raised, only 0.7 million in expenses).
These supposed budgets look completely unrealistic to me. I assumed that was intentional. Ask for way more than you need, and then settle for half that. It's a common strategy.
One can pad the budget with programs that you might hope to pursue if there was enough money, but you can't simply inflate the numbers for no reason.
I don't claim they're inflated for no reason, I only claim that they're inflated.
Soliciting donations with a budget you know is misleading constitutes fraud.
A budget is by definition a forward-looking statement. Obviously it is dependent, among other things, on actually receiving the money requested. Proving fraud would be impossible. Besides, the $4.6 million dollars doesn't even call itself a "budget".
If the percentages are known to be misleading, that might constitute fraud, although proving it would still be impossible. But asking for way more than you need and more than you ultimately get is not fraudulent even if it could be proven.
I'd like to assume that the $4.6M in "planned spending" is not so ridiculous that it would still be reasonable to have less than $1.5M in fundraiser income.
Less spending on capital expenditures, along with other cuts (the board certainly doesn't need anywhere near $200K/year, Wikimania costs should be borne by the participants, etc.) would probably make $1.5 million reasonable.
As a side note, Wikimania is entirely paid by "participants+sponsors" (mostly sponsors). However, its organization still appears in the "expenses" because these are expenses. We simply do not need to fundraise for Wikimania, it is covered by other means; but it is still part of the overall budget.
As for "board expenses", not sure you saw the note I left on WMF site about this. I apology for the unclarity of this part of the budget. We shall be more explicit next time. They rather constitute "governance" expenses than board expenses. These expenses include * board meeting expenses (ie, 4 meetings per year. Travel costs essentially). Can we cut down on these, my position is no. * an advisory board meeting (it occured immediately before Wikimania and at the same place. Essentially, it counts location of the room, travel expenses of 4 advisory board members who could not support their costs themselves; it also included hosting costs for all participants). Can we cut down on these ? Probably we can, but to be fair, amount was quite small. * wikimedia chapter meeting. One was held last year in october in Frankfurt. I originally suggested a new one this year again in Frankfurt, early december. The budget included travel and hosting costs of part of the participants (not only board members but also participants staff as well as participation of some of the chapter people). My own estimate was quite rough, and I saw other estimates afterwards which were slightly higher. As earlier mentionned, this meeting was cancelled, and I hope, will happen later in 2008. Final budget can vary depending on the location chosen, and ability of chapters to handle their participation themselves. Bottom line, this was not really a board expense, but a "governance" expense and definitly not involved only the board itself. Can we cut on that ? well, we can cancel the meeting permanently, but this is not something I will support. * other travel by board members. This includes Wikimania participation, visits to local chapters, or other travels not covered by other organizations. Amounts are quite limited actually. Jimmy covers most of his own travels. Aside from Wikimania, I do not think Jan-Bart or Frieda claim much. Michael is not travelling. I am not fully sure for Kat, but as a student, her freedom of mouvement is limited. Most of these expenses must come from Erik and I, and I think it is not scandalous at all. Note that we have now two policies to check those expenses. All expenses over 100 dollars must be pre-approved prior to the travel by one or two board members. * The rest of the expenses are registration to charity websites etc... peanuts.
We were not clear at all in explaining these expenses. Next time, I promise we'll try to be more specific.
Capital expenditures are always optional, after
all, since they're an investment in the future as well as an expense. How reasonable depends in part on how much is in the bank and how many servers were already bought in the current fiscal year. The current figures being released by the foundation are woefully inadequate to tell for sure.
The figures for the finance and administration are at $700,000/year. Maybe that's necessary, but with that much being spent I sure hope we start getting those regular financial reports that were promised something like two years ago.
And which could not be delivered until we had the staff to actually prepare them. But I suppose I do not really need to explain that to you again :-) that's the snake eating his tail.
ant