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[nc-budget] AGENDA AND BACKGROUND MATERIALS FOR NAMES COUNCIL BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING


This is to confirm that the Names Council Budget Committee will conduct a teleconference at 8:00 AM EST on Thursday, 7 December.  The agenda consists of two principal items.  The AFNIC statement and the 2001 budget.  We need to address the AFNIC statement first because, as was pointed out at the last meeting, we have no idea of the amount of a surplus of funds being carried over from 2000 to 2001 until we address the question of funds due to AFNIC.
 
Once we have addressed the AFNIC statement, we will then know how much of the DNSO funds can be carried over and applied to 2001 expenses and accordingly we can address the 2001 expense budget.
 
We have recently discussed a third item, which I would propose to defer tomorrow, and take up at our very next meeting.  Earlier, Mike Roberts had sent the Names Council a note offering three options on how the DNSO accounts could be managed in the future and the Budget Committee had expressed an interest in the third of these three (establishing an independent account for the mandatory dues of the DNSO.)  The DNSO's pursuit of this option would most likely require some formal incorporation of the DNSO, which has led to a discussion of options for incorporation of the DNSO.  ICANN management would like to revisit this topic with the Budget Committee and discuss some options which might not have been considered thus far.  To permit a full discussion of this, I'd like to suggest that we devote a separate meeting to long term management of the mandatory fees and invite ICANN management to give us a presentation of their views.  
 
1) Review of the financial statement submitted by AFNIC  ( http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/2000.AFNIC-DNSO.html )
 
While this statement does not exactly indicate that it is an invoice to the DNSO, we requested that AFNIC provide us with a statement of what they believe are the expenses for which they should be reimbursed and this is their response.  Accordingly, unless advised otherwise, I believe that we should treat it as an invoice.  Since the table is labeled as covering FY 2000 (Fiscal Year 2000), and since our Fiscal year is a calendar year, I believe we should interpret it as covering the period January-December 2000. 
 
The total identified in this AFNIC statement is US $59,400.  This compares with a current balance (at 18 October) of DNSO funds held for us by ICANN management of around US $72,000 and unpaid receivables for the DNSO from DNSO Constituencies of around US $52,000 (As of 18 October, the full $13,642 had not been paid by the ccTLD, ISP, and Non-Commercial Constituencies and US $10,642 had not been paid by the Registrars Constituency.)   If no other funds are collected by the DNSO for FY 2000, and $59, 400 is paid to AFNIC, the carry over amount from 2000 to 2001 would be around $13,000.  If all DNSO receivables are collected, and $59,400 paid to AFNIC, then the balance carried over would be around $65,000.
 
 
2) Development of a 2001 DNSO Expense Budget
 
At our last meeting, we developed, but did not finally agree to, an expense budget that presumed that expenses associated with professional support would be funded by the new voluntary fund.  We identified a target of a minimum of $120,000 for the voluntary fund, which would cover DNSO professional support.  As a result, the DNSO expense budget that would be funded by mandatory dues from the Constituencies was developed independent of professional support.
 
The DNSO expense budget for 2001 that we developed was at a high level of categories, and amounted to US $198,000, broken down as follows:
 
Administrative (includes supplies, any relevant rent, etc.)                        $25,000
Telephone (includes teleconferences, etc.)                                             $25,000
Travel (primarily for professional support or Council members)                  $25,000
Web and Listserv maintenance                                                             $50,000
Web casting (of NC, GA and other meetings)                                           $30,000
Language translations (documents, etc.)                                                $10,000 
Accounting/Audit (mandatory dues account, voluntary account)                $10,000
Legal services (set up of legal structure for mandatory funds account)        $5,000
Contingency (at 10% of the above)                                                          $18,000
 
If $13,000 in DNSO funds were carried over from 2000 to 2001, and we remained with a $198,000 expense budget, then the amount that would have to be raised from Constituency dues in 2001 (assuming 7 Constituencies) would be $185,000 or $26,000 per constituency.  To whatever extent less than $59,400 is paid to AFNIC or additional 2000 DNSO dues payments are received, these amounts would decline.
 
I believe that we need to conclude our recommendations to the Names Council for a 2001 DNSO expense budget at this meeting in order to permit the Council to finalize the budget in time for Constituencies to plan for, and raise their dues payments.                


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