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FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED

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FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to beginAt-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) reviewed the draft FY17 Operating Plan & Budget, and found it generally well done, with more clarity compared to the ones in previous years. We especially appreciate the planning process that has evolved year over year. We do hope that for the upcoming years, there will be more interaction with the community at all steps of the operating plan and budget development.

That being said, the ALAC has identified a number of areas that need further clarification:

In the draft FY17 Operating Plan & Budget, it is considered that the PTI is established to carry out the IANA naming function only, and that there will be an IANA department in ICANN, different from the PTI, to carry out the other two IANA functions (numbering and protocol parameters). This is not consistent with what is proposed in the CWG-Stewardship Final Report. However, the ALAC understands that since the publication of the Draft FY17 Operating Plan & Budget, this issue has been discussed with the CWG Implementation Oversight Task Force and that the plan and budget will be fully aligned with the CWG-Stewardship Final Report, with PTI assuming all three roles.

Regarding the item “Community Support Request” in section 3.1, there is no figures provided in the FY16 Forecast section, as they have been allocated to the expense categories based on the nature of the request. Since the table is intended to provide a side-by-side comparison between the FY16 Forecast and the FY17 Draft Budget (estimated at $0.6M for “Community Support Requests”), it would be better to include the FY16 figures in the table for the comparison purpose.

Regarding the new gTLD Program variance analysis in section 5.3, we may notice that for FY14, the prior estimated revenues (March 2015) are different from the current estimated ones (February 2016). Since FY14 ended on 30 June 2014, much earlier than March 2015, the actual revenues should be available now. Hence, those figures should be replaced by the actual amount, like what is done for FY12 and FY13.  If, for whatever reason, the revenue for a year long past is still changing, it should be explained.  

As for the “Support Operations”, which is defined as the various programs and projects that support functional operations, the ALAC would like to see these programs and projects in detail especially because their cost is quite significant ($22.1M). 

Two tables in the document show year-to-year changes not only in absolute numbers but as percentages (section 3.2, page 14 and appendix C, page 79). We suggest that all year-to-year tables and tables showing predicted vs actual figures should include percentages in addition to the absolute values. Percentages make it far easier to recognize and home in on major variations, and it is often these on which we need to focus our attention.

Finally, the ALAC is submitting, under separate cover, a proposal to integrate multiyear planning for At-Large General Assemblies and Summit meetings into the ICANN operating plan & budget instead of using community special budget support and ad hoc requests.

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FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) reviewed the draft FY17 Operating Plan & Budget, and find it in general well done, with more clarity compared to the previous years. We especially appreciate the planning process that evolved year over year. We do hope that for the upcoming years, there will be more interaction with the community at all steps of the plan and budget development.

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