Comment/Reply Periods (*)

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Public Comment Announcement
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Comment Open:

1 May 2012

Comment Close:

24 May 2012

Close Time (UTC):

23:59 UTC

Reply Open:

25 May 2012

Reply Close:

15 June 2012

Close Time (UTC):

23:59 UTC

Brief Overview

 

Originating Organization:

ICANN Finance

Categories/Tags:

  • Operations-Finances
  • ICANN Board/Bylaws

Purpose (Brief):

ICANN is now opening a public comment forum for the draft Operating Plan and Budget for fiscal year 2013[PDF, 3.28 MB]. Community members are kindly asked to provide feedback on the various aspects of the proposed budget and implementation of ICANN resources for the coming fiscal year, including operational growth tied to carry-over and new projects and the core functions of ICANN.

Current Status:

The Framework of the FY13 Budget was posted on 17 January 2012 for community feedback through online public comment and during sessions held in Costa Rica this past March. The comments received and the summary analysis, and proposed responses to those comments, can be found here:http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/op-budget-fy2013-17jan12-en.htm. This FY13 draft Operating Plan and Budget has incorporated the previous public comments, as well as input from ICANNStaff and Board.

Next Steps:

The FY13 draft Operating Plan and Budget will be modified as a result of feedback from the community,ICANN's staff and Board during this comment period, and will be presented to the ICANN Board for final approval at ICANN 44 in Prague, 24-29 June 2012.

Staff Contact:

Xavier Calvez, CFO

Email:

controller@icann.org

Detailed Information

 

Section I: Description, Explanation, and Purpose

The budget process and its outcome formalized in this document aims at establishing a detailed, documented description of the operational activities of the coming fiscal year and their financial impacts. The budget needs to be built with sufficient details to allow an adequate monitoring of activities during the year, while understanding the flexibility that is required to handle a reality that is always different than what was anticipated. Consistent with our multi-stakeholder model, this budget is the result of input fromICANN constituency groups, stakeholders, the Board of Directors and the ICANN Staff. The involvement of the various ICANNstakeholders in the operating plan and budget building process is a corner stone to the success of the multi-stakeholder model.

Section II: Background

The Framework for the FY13 Operating Plan and Budget was posted 17 January 2012 for initial input into the FY13 Budget planning process. Community consultations were held via webinars and face to face meetings in Costa Rica, March 2012.

Section III: Document and Resource Links

Section IV: Additional Information

None

 

1st Draft Statement on Wiki page: 24-May-2012
Call for Comments: 24-May-2012 (both to ALAC & to Finance & Budget sub-committee)
Call for comments closing time: 31-May-2012
2nd Draft (final) Statement to be designed: 31-May-2012 until 4-June-2012.
ALAC Vote starts: 5-June-2012
Vote reminder on: 8-June-2012
ALAC Vote ends: 11-June-2012
Statement to be submitted: 4-June-2012


ALAC Statement on the draft FY13 Operational Plan and Budget

(First draft)

 

The ALAC recognizes the continuous improvement in the Operating Plan and Budget establishment with more consultation with the community and a new evaluation model for the community additional request for funding.

The ALAC further recognizes that the level of detail in the budget presentation is now enhanced, and the explanations given allow its deep analysis and discussion. The separation of the stakeholder projects from the new gTLD readiness, the policy support, the community support, and the global engagement activities represents one example of the so-called enhancement.

Regarding the IDN program, the ALAC find it important to make use as much as possible of the community members’ expertise that brings the linguistic source knowledge, which would minimize hiring external experts. The variant studies done by the 6 voluntary community member groups showed how useful the contribution of the community members can be. Besides, it may decrease drastically the program cost.

The ALAC believes that being part of the new gTLD application process, TAS, Digital Archery, and other system security of the new gTLD shouldn’t be counted in the core operation and project component of the budget, but in the new gTLD budget.

The ALAC welcomes the improvement in the interaction with the constituencies regarding the community additional requests. Nevertheless, the rejection of the projects planned in a non-ICANN event seems to be arbitrary, and yet, it could be considered as an outreach and communication operation since it would showcase the ICANN community work in the Internet ecosystem.

The ALAC notices with great satisfaction that ICANN will participate in the upcoming IGF differently, making use of its community initiatives. The coordination between ICANN management and the concerned constituencies for the preparation of the ICANN participation in such an event seems to the ALAC of great importance. The community workshops during the IGF, as substantive contribution  gives to ICANN a significant visibility that has a great impact on its image.

Building on the successful experiences of AFRALO and LACRALO capacity building programs held in Dakar and San José respectively, the planned programs for Toronto and Asia Pacific (TBD) in FY 2013 show the receptivity and reactivity of the ICANN management to those fruitful activities lead by the At-Large community. ALAC expresses its satisfaction and its commitment to make the budgeted programs successful and fruitful for the community and for ICANN as well.

On the other hand, the ALAC finds it abnormal that the global revenue of the Ombudsman increases by more than 28% because of an additional administrative cost for renting an office and the associated expenses.

The ALAC reiterates its concern about the huge disparity in the registry fees. They do not follow any rule and show an arbitrary way of charging the 18 existing gTLDs registries: some do not pay the fixed fees, others do not pay the per transaction fees, and the value of the fixed and the per transaction fees changes from a registry to another. We can notice that dot com does not pay the per transaction fees while the dot cat (community TLD) pays the per transaction fees at one of the highest rate ($ 1 per transaction) as well as the fixed fees.

Now that new gTLDs will be accredited, the ALAC does think that the community not for profit TLDs should be charged at a minimum rate while the rest of all TLDs should be charged uniformly according to well-defined rules

 

As for the ICANN offices, the ALAC notices that they are mainly located in North America. ALAC believes that if a Regional Office network is required to effectively serve a global community and the strategic objectives and activities of ICANN, then a plan for such (inclusive of a review of and rationalization for location and operation /staffing of existing offices and requirements such as outreach and the work of Global Partnership  and the ACs and SOs), should be undertaken to ensure an effective, efficient, appropriate, regionally balanced and properly resourced and coasted  global offices network and we assume supported by the ICANN community and stakeholders.


 

Please click here to download the document below in PDF format

 

The ALAC welcomes the continuous improvement in the Operating Plan and Budget establishment with more consultation with the community and a new evaluation model for the community additional request for funding.

The ALAC further recognizes that the level of detail in the budget presentation is now enhanced, and the explanations provided allow for a deeper analysis and discussion. The separation of the stakeholder projects from the new gTLD readiness, the policy support, the community support and the global engagement activities represents one example of those enhancements.

Regarding the IDN program, the ALAC find it important to make use as much as possible of the expertise of community members who bring linguistic source knowledge, which would minimize hiring external experts. The variant studies done by the six voluntary community member groups showed how useful the contribution of the community members can be. Use of this resource may decrease drastically the program cost.

The ALAC believes that being inherent parts of the new gTLD application process, the TAS, the Digital Archery and the other system security of the new gTLD should not be counted in the core operation and project component of the budget, but in the new gTLD budget.

The ALAC welcomes the improvement in the interaction with the constituencies regarding the community additional requests. Nevertheless, the rejection of the projects planned in a non-ICANN event seems to be arbitrary. Instead, this could be considered as an outreach and communication operation since it would showcase the ICANN community work in the wider Internet ecosystem.

The ALAC notices with great satisfaction that ICANN will participate in the upcoming IGF differently and more effectively, making use of its community initiatives. The community workshops during the IGF directly involving ICANN communities give ICANN a significant visibility that has a great impact on its image. Workshops at IGF provide a substantial input to IGF proceedings. The ALAC therefore believes that the coordination between ICANN management and the concerned constituencies for the preparation of the ICANN participation in such an event is of great importance.

Building on the successful experiences of AFRALO and LACRALO capacity building programs held in Dakar and San José respectively, the planned programs for Toronto and Asia Pacific (TBD) in FY 2013 show the receptivity and reactivity of the ICANN management to those fruitful activities led by the At-Large community. The ALAC expresses its satisfaction and its commitment to make the budgeted programs successful and fruitful for the community and for ICANN as well.

On the other hand, the ALAC finds it abnormal that the global revenue of the Ombudsman increases by more than 28% because of an additional administrative cost for renting an office and the associated expenses.

The ALAC reiterates its concern about the huge disparity in the registry fees. They do not follow any rule and show an arbitrary way of charging the 18 existing gTLDs registries: some do not pay the fixed fees, others do not pay the per-transaction fees, and the amount of the fixed and the per-transaction fees changes from a registry to another. We can notice that dot com does not pay the per-transaction fees while the dot cat (community TLD) pays the per-transaction fees at one of the highest rate ($ 1 per transaction) as well as the fixed fees.

Now that new gTLDs will be accredited, the ALAC advises that the community not for profit TLDs should be charged at a minimum rate while the rest of all TLDs should be charged uniformly according to well-defined rules.

On the subject of ICANN offices, the ALAC notices that they are mainly located in North America. The ALAC believes that if a Regional Office network is required to effectively serve a global community and the strategic objectives and activities of ICANN, then a plan for such (inclusive of a review of and rationalization for location and operation/staffing of existing offices and requirements such as outreach and the work of Global Partnership and the ACs and SOs), should be undertaken to ensure an effective, efficient, appropriate, regionally balanced and properly resourced and coasted global offices network and we assume supported by the ICANN community and stakeholders.

--- statement end ---

 

 

1st Draft Statement on Wiki page: 24-May-2012
Call for Comments: 24-May-2012 (both to ALAC & to Finance & Budget sub-committee)
Call for comments closing time: 31-May-2012
2nd Draft (final) Statement to be designed: 31-May-2012 until 4-June-2012.
ALAC Vote starts: 5-June-2012
Vote reminder on: 8-June-2012
ALAC Vote ends: 11-June-2012
Statement to be submitted: 4-June-2012
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3 Comments

  1. On behalf of EURALO, I would like to underline what Tijani stated above (5th para.) "... the rejection of the projects planned in a non-ICANN event seems to be arbitrary, and yet, it could be considered as an outreach and communication operation since it would showcase the ICANN community work in the Internet ecosystem."  The recent randomness for approval or rejection of a project from regions was not consistent or comprehensible at all by assessing "non-ICANN event" or "... related" and proofed to be arbitrary in various, even obvious cases. Even reflecting some improvements in terms of transparency etc., mentioned above, the Operating Plan and Budget recent decisions still do not properly reflect and serve the interests and needs of regions to plan and conduct their work neither for in-reach nor for outreach improvements. EURALO could not count on any substantial support since the At-Large Summit in March 2009 and was considered with a minimum request for 2013, after not having been considered for years. And the recently approved allocations tend to be disproportional (for NARALO and EURALO at least) again. From our POV we cannot assess much progress.

  2. I do not believe that the last paragraph is effective as it is currently written  (and I could rationalize and effectivly argue on a couple of the points made SYD for example is idealy placed for an AP-regional office for a lot of reasons)

    So where it reads => "If all those offices are needed ... ... ..."  I would propose that THAT  text be deleted and replaced with something like => 'ALAC believes that if a Regional Office network is required to effectivly serve a global community and the strategic objectives and activities of ICANN, then a plan for such (inclusive of a review of and rationalisation for location and operation /staffing of existing offices and requirements such as outreach and the work of Global Partnership  and the ACs and SOs, should be undertaken to ensure an effective, efficient, appropriate and properly resourced and costed  global offices network should be undertaken and we assume supported by the ICANN community and stakeholders.'  or some such text to reflect e desire for an effective and equitable local office/resources network to exist...

  3. Thank you Tijani for the last paragraph edit (smile)   MUCH better (smile)