[ALAC] Statement on the FY16 Budget regarding Policy Staff

[Alan Greenberg]

During the ALAC call yesterday, Olivier suggested 
that the ALAC make a focused comment on the FY16 
budget pointing out that there was no apparent 
planned increase in Policy Staff (serving among 
others, At-large and the GNSO), despite what 
seems to be an increasing need for such staff 
driven by ramping up workloads on these communities.

We received approval to draft such a statement 
and to submit it on behalf of the ALAC prior to 
the close of comments at 23:59 today (01 May 2015).

Olivier drafted what I thought was a perfect 
statement which was also supported by several 
other ALT members. Accordingly I instructed Staff 
to post it. The formal message can be found at 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-op-budget-fy16-18mar15/msg00008.html 
and the contents of the statement are reproduced below for your convenience.

I thank Olivier for his quick and skillful work on this.

Alan

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The ALAC thanks the ICANN Finance Department for 
the significant improvements in the establishment 
of the proposed budget, specifically when it 
comes to engaging ICANN Communities at an early stage.

The ALAC is satisfied with the Budget proposal as 
a whole, but has one specific item of concern, 
related to the evolution of support for ICANN Policy Development.

Both the GNSO and the ALAC’s activities are 
essentially funded under the ICANN Policy budget. 
Policy Development is a Core activity at ICANN. 
It is this Multistakeholder Policy Development 
that differentiates ICANN from any other 
organisation. The overall budget allocated to 
Policy Development and supporting the SO/ACs, 
including constituency travel support, is about 
11.4 million US Dollars – a figure derived from 
the document supplied. Although it is understood 
that this might not strictly be the total budget 
for SO/AC Policy Support, this figure constitutes 
the bulk of its budget. Yet, this is a comparably 
small figure compared to the overall ICANN Budget 
expense for the year of 118.6 million US Dollars 
(113 million US Dollar baseline excluding 
initiatives) – surprisingly less than 10% of 
total budget for a Core Activity and Key differentiation factor.

The ALAC has significant concerns about the 
growth of this budget which it believes to be too low.

This concern translates directly to concerns 
about staffing levels. Data in the table on page 
9 of the Draft FY16 Budget by Portfolio and 
Project (“1.1 Resource Allocation”) indicates 
that in the coming financial year 27 FTEs will 
support policy development, or around 8% of total 
FTEs. The budget indicates that 16 new staff 
hires are expected for FY16, yet, although there 
appears to be a rise of 1.7 FTE in Policy 
Support, none of the hires seem to be in Policy 
Support. Both the GNSO and the ALAC have not 
seen, nor are they expecting a reduction in their 
activities. Quite the contrary, the ALAC 
forecasts a number of new PDPs, review processes, 
as well as a potential next round of gTLDs which 
will only serve to increase the demand on already 
busy Staff. Its Community of At-Large Structures 
will soon reach the 200 mark – translating to a 
need for increased support of its increased 
activity. The ALAC is therefore concerned that 
this need to increase FTEs supporting Policy both 
in the GNSO and in the ALAC is not currently 
reflected in the budget and may lead to both 
Staff overwork and Community frustration, thus 
leading to a reduction in Community involvement 
that risks making long term evolution of the 
Multistakeholder model unsustainable.