[Foundation-l] Putting the Foundation back in WMF

[Christiano Moreschi]

> Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:27:23 -0500
> From: wikimail at inbox.org
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Putting the Foundation back in WMF
> 
> On Nov 18, 2007 1:34 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 17, 2007 7:54 PM, Anthony <wikimail at 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.  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 on that note, isn't there some audit thingummy we're supposed to be hearing something about? Hasn't that been in the pipeline for quite a while? Or am I all imagining this?

CM


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