I consider the systematic omission of proactive disclosure of this expenditure of at least $300,000 in donor funds to be financial misconduct and a breach of trust. It's profoundly contrary to the values that this organization claims to uphold.
Pine
On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 9:17 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I've been following this discussion with some interest. Can someone point us to where Sue's compensation, after she left the Executive Director
role,
was budgeted in the WMF annual plans? That money cannot have come out of nowhere. Which line item, or line items, in the 2015-2016 Annual Plan
were
tapped for these funds?
The 2015-2016 Annual Plan[1] lists 2 FTEs under 'Executive', whereas the 2015-2014 plan[2] listed 1.
I'm not sure if this represents the second full-time equivalent contracting expense for the former-ED advisor role being added, or if the ED's personal assistant role got moved in to that 'department', or if that means something else, but it struck me as odd. (Unlike the other functional areas, there is no breakdown given by type.)
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/43/WMF2015-16AnnualPlan.... under "Appending B", "Staffing by Functional Area" [2]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e0/2014-15_Wikimedia_Fou... under "Staffing by Functional Area"
A second question. WMF demands exhaustive reporting from affiliates for
far
smaller amounts of money than Sue received. I am hoping that WMF followed good practice by having a careful accounting of how Sue's time was used
to
benefit WMF in a manner consistent with the intent of donors when they
give
to WMF. Is there an accounting for Sue's use of time as a contractor, and if so, in what level of detail do those records exist?
My impression from Jan-Bart's emails was that Sue's role as Special
Advisor
was a volunteer role, similar to Advisory Board members. Why was Sue's contractor status not disclosed in those emails?
As Lodewijk said, why was Sue not shown on the public list of paid staff and contractors? Interns who earn far less than $300k per year are
included
on that list; I cannot imagine what good reason there would be to have excluded Sue from the list unless there was an intent to hide that she continued to be paid by WMF.
I am greatly troubled by this situation. It was opaque, the accounting appears to be lax, and the more I look at it the more it seems to have
been
intentionally concealed in a manner that was inappropriate and designed
to
avoid transparency and accountability.
Yes, it's worrying whether it's deliberate obfuscation or whether it's a case of "left hand not knowing what the right is doing".
-- brion _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe