[ALAC] ALAC Statement on Reserve Fund

[Alan Greenberg]

See https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=71602968.

Sebastien identified a number of important issues related to the 
reserve fund, following discussion with him, I have drafted the 
following short statement (also posted to the Wiki). As the PC closes 
on Thursday, and I believe it is essential that we make a strong 
statement, I would like to discuss this on the ALAC call in a few hours.

Alan

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The ALAC strongly supports having the Reserve Fund at the level of 12 
months expenses, and higher if there is a practical way of achieving 
that without unduly impacting ICANN's ability to provide necessary 
services, ensure the current and ongoing security, stability and 
resiliency of the DNS, and adequately support its ACs and SOs.

Since the Reserve Fund level is clearly tightly coupled to the level 
of ICANN operational expenses, any discussion of the reserve should 
have included a recent history and projection of ICANN operational 
expenses along with the employee/contractor levels and the Reserve 
Fund levels over the same period.

At whatever level the Reserve Fund target is set, ICANN must publish 
a plan on how and when this will be achieved. Given that the proposed 
target level(s) are significantly above the current Reserve Fund 
level, and it is unrealistic to believe that we will sustain or 
exceed this year's return-to-reserve of $5m, ICANN should 
expeditiously investigate alternative methods of building the reserve 
to ensure ICANN's future stability. Sources such as the Auction 
Proceeds, the surplus from the last round of new gTLD, or a levy on 
any future new gTLD fees should be considered.