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IASA BCP Section 5.3

2004-11-17 05:13:10

I have some comments on Section 5.3 of the IASA BCP, "Other ISOC Support".

The first paragraph of this section says:

   Other ISOC support shall be based on the budget process as specified
   in Section 6.  ISOC will deposit the yearly amount (as agreed to in
   approved budget) in equal portions.  At a minimum such deposits will
   be made quarterly.

This seems unnecessarily restrictive.

Budgets are not always flat quarter-to-quarter. Since there are only three IETF meeting a year, there is a quarter in which no IETF meeting is held. Also, if there is a hiring plan for new staff and/or a particular project that begins or ends during the year, the funding needs of the IETF may differ from quarter to quarter.

I would rather that the document say:

   Other ISOC support shall be based on the budget process as specified
   in Section 6.  The amount of allocated funds and the dates on which funds
will be transferred to the IASA account will be agreed as part of the budgeting
   process.

The second paragraph in this section says:

   If ISOC directly funds any other IETF expenses, such as the IETF
   share of ISOC's liability insurance premium, this will be documented
   together with the other IASA accounts.

I'm not really sure what this means...

There are some complexities to this budgeting process that aren't captured in this document, and I don't think that they should be. However, calling out one particular point (such as insurance) really begs the question of why other things that fall into this category are not called out. I would prefer that we simply delete this paragraph from the BCP.

It does seem likely to me that there will be a single ISOC D&O insurance policy and that the costs of that policy will be allocated to the ISOC standards pillar as part of the overhead. But, I don't understand the point of calling out this particular expense as something special... There are other costs (such as paying a qualified accountant to figure these things out) that will also fall into this category.

Margaret

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