[nc-budget] FINAL DRAFT REPORT OF THE NAMES COUNCIL BUDGET COMMITTEE ON AFNIC INVOICE AND PROPOSED 2001 BUDGET

["Cochetti, Roger" <rogerc@netsol.com>]

> ICANN DOMAIN NAME SUPPORTING ORGANIZATION (DNSO) NAMES COUNCIL BUDGET
> COMMITTEE
> 
> TO THE ICANN DNSO NAMES COUNCIL
> 
> JANUARY 2001
> 
> During October, November, and January, the Names Council Budget Committee
> met four times to address, among other things, two important questions:
> (1) What obligations, if any, does the DNSO have to AFNIC, which provided
> administrative support to the DNSO and the Names Council during 2000?; and
> (2) What should be the DNSO budget for 2001?
> 
> AFNIC PAYMENT
> 
> The Committee met with AFNIC on several occasions to clarify AFNIC's view
> of the DNSO's financial obligations to AFNIC and requested that AFNIC
> provide the Committee with an itemized statement of funds that AFNIC
> believes are due to it for services rendered by AFNIC to the DNSO during
> 2000.  AFNIC's representative explained that AFNIC had provided support
> services to the DNSO during 1999 at no charge, but that it had advised the
> DNSO that any services provided by AFNIC to the DNSO during 2000 would
> require some compensation (AFNIC states that it does not seek full
> commercial compensation for the services that it provided to the DNSO in
> 2000; only partial compensation.)
> 
> The Committee requested a statement from AFNIC by 30 November 2000 for
> services provided by AFNIC to the DNSO from January through November 2000.
> This Statement can be found at
> http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/2000.AFNIC-DNSO.html . It indicates that
> the amount due to AFNIC from the DNSO is US $59,400.00.
> 
> The Committee examined the AFNIC statement in some detail an concluded
> that the full amount of the Statement should be paid by the DNSO to AFNIC,
> subject to three conditions:
> 
> (1) AFNIC provides the Committee with a clear statement that describes the
> intellectual property rights that the DNSO has acquired by virtues of the
> services provided by AFNIC to the DNSO during 2000; and
> 
> (2) AFNIC provides the Committee with an estimated allocation of the
> $59,400 among the various elements of the DNSO (Names Council, General
> Assembly, etc.); and 
> 
> (3) AFNIC agrees to continue to support the DNSO at the same level that it
> supported the DNSO during 2000, at no additional charge, for no more than
> three months beyond 1 January 2001 to permit the DNSO to properly procure
> support services for itself.
	 
	AFNIC has verbally indicated their acceptance of the third condition
and not yet responded to the first two.
	 
> The Committee recommends that the Council adopt this approach and so
> authorize the payment to AFNIC.
> 
> 
> 
> 2001 DNSO BUDGET
> 
> As indicated in the attached note to the Committee from ICANN management,
> as of 6 December 2000, the DNSO had received a cumulative $95,500 in
> payments from DNSO Constituencies during 1999 and 2000.  In addition to
> this amount, various DNSO constituencies have indicated that they would be
> providing additional payments against their dues fairly soon.  Whatever
> the amount collected, if the Budget Committee recommendation of a $59,400
> DNSO payment to AFNIC is accepted (along with modest payments already made
> to the Berkman Center for services provided to the DNSO), this would leave
> a balance in the DNSO account of around $35,000 plus any additional funds
> collected after 6 December 2000.  These excess funds could obviously be
> applied to DNSO expenses in 2001.
> 
> In addition, as noted in previous Budget Committee reports to the Council,
> the Committee is in the process of structuring a "voluntary fund" that
> would be independently administered and that would be used to finance the
> cost of providing professional support services to the DNSO.  When this
> voluntary fund is established, donations may be made to it and VeriSign
> Global Registry Services has indicated that it would match all donations
> made to this fund up to $100,000.
> 
> As a result of the above, the Committee concluded that it would construct
> a proposed DNSO 2001 budget based on the assumptions that there would be
> at least a $35,000 carry over of funds from 2000 to 2001 and that the
> voluntary fund that is planned would come into operation and it would be
> used to cover the costs of professional support for the DNSO in 2001.
> Consequently, the Committee's budget analysis assumes that no funds from
> the regular budget are allocated for professional support and that in
> setting 2001 dues for the DNSO constituencies, a roughly $35,000 beginning
> DNSO balance should be presumed at 1 January 2001.
> 
> Using these assumptions, the Committee proposes an expense budget for the
> DNSO for 2001 of $107,600, consisting of the following general categories
> of expense and the reservation of the $35,000 in unused funds from 2000
> for contingency spending in 2001:
> 
> Administrative		$12,000
> Telecommunications	$18,100
> Travel			$25,500
> Web/Listserv Maintenance	$30,000
> Web casting			$0
> Language Translations	$10,000
	Professional Services 	$12,000


> In particular, the Committee notes that it is assuming that there is
> professional support staff for the DNSO during 2001 and that it has
> budgeted no funds for Web casting.
> 
> If this $107,600  expense budget is accepted, then the dues payment by
> each of the seven DNSO Constituencies during 2001 would be $15,371.
> 
> 
	CONSEQUENCES OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUES BY CONSTITUENCIES

	The Committee has considered the issue of consequences of the
non-payment of dues by DNSO Constituencies and believes that a graduated
system of actions should be put in place that would be based on the duration
of the arrearage.  Specific ideas will be discussed at the Council meeting.
>          
> 
> 
> 
> Roger J. Cochetti
> Senior Vice President-Policy
> VeriSign/Network Solutions, Inc.
> rogerc@netsol.com <mailto:rogerc@netsol.com>
> (703) 326-2585
>