[IAEP] [SLOBS] [SLOB] meeting reminder and some open issues to discuss

[Adam Holt]

The financial spring cleaning CarylB, DaveC and others have worked hard on
within
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16jIFuZ9bX-Bv675BpA1KmcEcRcX4PRCOUEX0ICRUkOc/edit
is promising, but seems premature in my opinion, until its mechanics are
better understood:

- Even if we suppose that $X remains $200 (as it has been for many years,
not Board involvement for expenses under $200), Financial Manager potential
monthly stipend $Y still remains too vague.  Should $Y be $100 per month or
what?

- The prior "month" is very poorly defined, making the Financial Manager's
life impossible, if for example SL Board meets on Friday March 1st, and a
financial report summarizing February must be submitted "72 hours in
advance" by February 25th realistically, then the Financial Manager must
have worked for the prior week to get this right Feb 18-to-25th.   If s/he
is away that week for a family/professional emergency, and does not want to
be fired then s/he must do the work Feb 10-to-17th, and as such has pulled
the numbers from SFConservancy's system on February 10th, just over a week
after the prior SL board meeting.  So perhaps the only practical thing she
can do is run a report on the prior month of January?  And even if s/he
tries to do that, SFConservancy has explained to me that they often take a
month-or-so to get all receipts entered into their system, so the Financial
Manager cannot in fact get hard information about January.  My
understanding from SFConservancy is that on February 10th, we could only
get hard info on December's financials, and even then there's no absolute
guarantee, as receipts come in very late at times.

On the one hand it sounds ridiculous, in the age where most of us obtain
live bank statements online, that we cannot get confirmed up-to-date
financials until 2 months later!  But what other options are there?  Should
we accept known-imprecise financial reporting in exchange for recency?  And
if so, aren't we really asking for a rolling report of the prior ~3 months
every time?  Let`s spell it out, if in fact those are the true duties of
the Financial Manager -- to provide a rolling estimates (estimates, to the
best of his/her professional ability) of the prior 3 months of
expenses/income and balance on the last day of each month?

- Dismissal notice could be a lot more precise: "Failure to carry out these
2 duties for more than one meeting will result in removal and appointment
of another Finance Manager."  Can s/he miss one or both duties once per
6-month period due to death of a close family member?  Is s/he fired
immediately for missing one or both dutires twice, even if separated by 2
years?  If so, we need to spell it out.  If conversely we want to fire the
Financial Manager immediately, for failing to fulfill 1 duty or the other,
then we should say that more explicitly.



On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 11:00 AM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> On 6 May 2016 at 10:35, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > I am hoping all the differences have been ironed out and that my motions
>> > receive a majority vote.
>>
>> I just checked
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/16jIFuZ9bX-Bv675BpA1KmcEcRcX4PRCOUEX0ICRUkOc/edit
>> and it still has a lot of my suggestions to be reviewed by Caryl, and
>> as she says,
>>
>> > I noticed, the last time I checked, amounts for $X and $Y had not been
>> > discussed. They are an important part of the motion.
>>
>> So I don't the motion for a finance manager can be passed today.
>>
>> However, can SLOBs pass a motion at any time? (And so the monthly
>> meetings are just to ensure no motions go undecided for more than a
>> month?)
>>
>> If so then I hope Caryl can firm up the motion and it can be passed
>> within May :)
>>
>> --
>> Cheers
>> Dave
>>
>
> I agree that there are a number of open issues in the motions. Re Motion
> 1, I am on the fence about making it a paid position: I have seen no
> evidence that that will make a difference, but I am willing to give it a
> shot. Re Motion 2, I have asked for evidence that (1) we are solving a real
> problem and (2) if it is not better to delegate low-volume/low-threshold
> spending authority to the teams, where the knowledge resides. (For example,
> Bernie, as head of the infrastructure team, could have unilaterally
> approved the request for the domain name payment. He already has that
> authority.) I am fine with the other two motions as written.
>
> -walter
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> <http://www.sugarlabs.org>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>


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