<div dir="ltr"><div>James,</div><div><br></div><div><b>If the board has the will</b> to appoint me as Financial Manager they can.</div><div><br></div><div>Conservancy's Conflict if interest Policy<b> defines a clear procedure for the case</b>:</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">== Project Leadership Committees</span><br style="font-size:12.8px">...</div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">PLC wishes to recommend that </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> contract with a PLC Person</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">to carry out the work, the following criteria must be met:</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">** *Suggested Compensation.* The PLC must provide </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">'s</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Executive Director (or designee) with a suggested compensation (converted</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">into an hourly wage) for the technical service contractor to be retained to</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">fulfill the funded contract.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">** *Independent Assessment of Credentials.* The PLC (or an unaffiliated</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">PLC Person) must provide </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">'s Executive Director (or designee)</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">with a written assessment as to why the PLC Person is uniquely qualified</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">to fulfill the funded contract.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">** *</span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> Retains Right to Request Competitive Bids.* PLCs</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">acknowledge that </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> retains the right to ask for bids from</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">technical service contractors in addition to PLC Person to fulfill a</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">given contract. </span><span style="font-size:12.8px">Should that instance arise, </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">'s Executive Director (or designee)</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">will consult with the PLC to select the candidate best suited to fulfill</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">the contract within the budget allotted.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">* *</span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> holds Sole Authority to Negotiate and Execute Contracts.*</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">PLCs acknowledge that </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> holds sole authority</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">to negotiate and execute contracts on behalf of Member Projects. In</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">turn, </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Conservancy</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> pledges to negotiate all contracts zealously, putting</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">the best </span><span class="gmail-il" style="font-size:12.8px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">interests</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> of the affected Member Project first. To avoid</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">any conflicts, PLCs must not engage in any pre-negotiation with prospective</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">technical service contractors -- including PLC Persons -- beyond</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">collecting the terms </span><span style="font-size:12.8px">of the technical service contractor(s)' bid.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Regards</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Laura V</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2017-09-08 21:52 GMT-05:00 James Cameron <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:quozl@laptop.org" target="_blank">quozl@laptop.org</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Yes, this may introduce a conflict of interest.<br> <br> Laura may be unduly influenced by a secondary interest of stipend.<br> <br> Laura can defuse the conflict by either<br> <br> 1. absenting from any discussions that involve finance, and<br> abstaining from any motions that involve finance, or<br> <br> 2. resigning from the oversight board.<br> <br> I don't think either are a good outcome for Sugar Labs.<br> <br> In other organisations where I am a board member, a board may cover<br> some costs of a board member for attending to board matters, usually<br> after the costs are incurred, and with independent verification of the<br> amount of remuneration.<br> <br> Independence is lacking in this motion.<br> <div><div class="h5"><br> On Sat, Sep 09, 2017 at 02:12:51AM +0000, Caryl Bigenho wrote:<br> > Hello All...<br> ><br> > I came late to this discussion as we have been very busy the past few days and<br> > I didn't check my email until this am.<br> ><br> > I wish to question the propriety of making the financial manager a paid<br> > employee who is also serving on the board. This is quite out of the ordinary<br> > and begs for a conflict of interest problem. This holds true for family members<br> > of a board member (spouse, children, mothers etc.). This is not just coming<br> > from me. A quick search turns up plenty of information:<br> ><br> > From Google:<br> ><br> > Can an employees of a non profit be on the board of directors?<br> > It is not a good idea to have a paid staff member serve on the board and may<br> > even be limited by your state's nonprofit laws. The chief reason staff members<br> > do not usually sit on a nonprofit's board is the risk of a conflict of<br> > interest. ... Staff may attend board meetings, especially the CEO or Executive<br> > Director.Oct 25, 2016<br> ><br> > What state is SFC, our umbrella organization incorporated in? The state laws<br> > may actually forbid paid staff and/or their spouses, children, etc. from<br> > serving on the board. There are also some IRS complications that may come up.<br> ><br> > Sugar Labs is already paying SFC to do the books. It should not be a "job" to<br> > collect their periodic report and share it with the Sugar Labs membership. In<br> > the meantime, I understand the SLOBs have been granted access to the financial<br> > information now on an ongoing basis, which should help clear up some of the<br> > questions people have had.<br> ><br> > Other Sources<br> ><br> > <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.thebalance.com/</a><br> > can-nonprofits-pay-board-<wbr>members-or-appoint-paid-staff-<wbr>2502271<br> ><br> > <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/56/files/2017/08/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://nonprofitquarterly.<wbr>org/wp-content/blogs.dir/56/<wbr>files/2017/08/</a><br> > Screenshot-2017-08-21-06.14.<wbr>27.png<br> ><br> </div></div>> [1]<a href="https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.<wbr>councilofnonprofits.org/tools-<wbr>resources/</a><br> > can-board-members-be-paid<br> > [2] [3]Can board members be paid? | National Council of<br> > [questions-answers-feature] Nonprofits<br> <span class="">> <a href="http://www.councilofnonprofits.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">www.councilofnonprofits.org</a><br> > The vast, indeed overwhelming majority, of board<br> > members of charitable nonprofits are unpaid<br> > volunteer members of their boards of directors.<br> > This is because of the ...<br> > Caryl<br> ><br> </span>> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━<wbr>━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━<wbr>━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━<br> <span class="">> From: IAEP <<a href="mailto:iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.org">iaep-bounces@lists.sugarlabs.<wbr>org</a>> on behalf of Laura Vargas<br> > <<a href="mailto:laura@somosazucar.org">laura@somosazucar.org</a>><br> > Sent: Friday, September 8, 2017 10:32:28 AM<br> > To: Adam Holt; SLOBs<br> > Cc: iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; Karen Sandler; OLPC para usuarios, docentes,<br> > voluntarios y administradores<br> > Subject: Re: [IAEP] Motion: To appoint Volunteer Laura Vargas as Sugar Labs<br> > Financial Manager [was Re: [SLOBS] URGENT action needed]<br> ><br> > Adam,<br> ><br> > I'm OK if you are not willing to mentor me. I'll research and learn as well.<br> ><br> > I have published all the ledger commands here, that I know of to hopefully<br> </span>> get you started: [4] <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2017-August/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/<wbr>archive/iaep/2017-August/</a><br> <div><div class="h5">> 019935.html<br> ><br> ><br> > PS a quarterly financial report makes Far More Sense that monthly voodoo /<br> > feel-good economics, when most transactions are reported at highly<br> > uncertain times many months after the fact.<br> ><br> > Yes. Approved MOTION 2017-13 Approves the Sugar Labs Financial Manager to have<br> > a monthly stipend of US$ TBD in exchange for: 1 complete financial report per<br> > quarter and it's publication on the Sugar Labs Finance Wiki page.<br> ><br> > 20 hours or anybody's time to repeatedly run the same numbers is an<br> > extremely bad use of anybody's time in my opinion, particularly as there<br> > are many months with no transactions at all.<br> ><br> > I estimated I would need to dedicate least 20 monthly hours, considering that:<br> ><br> > A) English is not my native language and I have to account time for translating<br> > and rechecking.<br> > B) Reports publication are due since February 2016 (1 year and 2 quarters to<br> > catch up).<br> > C) All financial procedures require to be debugged and properly published on<br> > the SL wiki.<br> ><br> > Anyhow, if this is what you are requiring please feel free to modify up or down<br> > the amount of the stipend so we can move on.<br> ><br> > Regards,<br> ><br> > --<br> > Laura V.<br> > I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org<br> ><br> > “Solo la tecnología libre nos hará libres.”<br> > ~ L. Victoria<br> ><br> > Happy Learning!<br> > #LearningByDoing<br> > #Projects4good<br> > #IDesignATSugarLabs<br> > #WeCanDoBetter<br> ><br> </div></div>> References:<br> ><br> > [1] <a href="https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/can-board-members-be-paid" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.<wbr>councilofnonprofits.org/tools-<wbr>resources/can-board-members-<wbr>be-paid</a><br> > [2] <a href="https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/can-board-members-be-paid" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.<wbr>councilofnonprofits.org/tools-<wbr>resources/can-board-members-<wbr>be-paid</a><br> > [3] <a href="https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/can-board-members-be-paid" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.<wbr>councilofnonprofits.org/tools-<wbr>resources/can-board-members-<wbr>be-paid</a><br> > [4] <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2017-August/019935.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/<wbr>archive/iaep/2017-August/<wbr>019935.html</a><br> <br> > ______________________________<wbr>_________________<br> > Sugar-devel mailing list<br> > <a href="mailto:Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org">Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.<wbr>org</a><br> > <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/<wbr>listinfo/sugar-devel</a><br> <span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br> <br> --<br> James Cameron<br> <a href="http://quozl.netrek.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://quozl.netrek.org/</a><br> </font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Laura V.<br><font color="#ff00ff"><b> I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org</b></font></div><div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);font-family:"helvetica neue",helvetica,arial,sans-serif"><br>“Solo la tecnología libre nos hará libres.” </span></font></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);font-family:"helvetica neue",helvetica,arial,sans-serif">~ L. Victoria</span></font><br><br></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px">Happy Learning!<br>#LearningByDoing</div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px">#Projects4good</div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px">#IDesignATSugarLabs<br></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:12.8px">#WeCanDoBetter</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> </div>