FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED
The final version to be submitted, if the draft is ratified, will be placed here by upon completion of the vote.
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 begin.
FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED
The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins.
FY18 Operating Plan and Budget
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ALAC Comment
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The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) would like to thank the ICANN CFO and his team for the improvement made in the FY18 operating plan and budget in terms of clarity.
The ALAC notes with satisfaction the integration of the ALAC/RALO Development session, the Captioning project, as well as the CROPP pilot Program into the ICANN core budget. These programs will need to be extended as the activities expand.
The At-Large advisory Committee supports the request made by the CCWG Accountability to extend the budget for the Work Stream 2 Subgroups support to FY18 to permit the completion of most of those sub-groups work.
We regret to notice that the Document Development Pilot Project (DDPP) is not in the FY18 budget anymore. The DDPP was a clear success and deserves further funding in FY18. We even believe that it should be expanded to include training in the development of policy advice statements.
The ALAC doesn’t understand why the Root Zone Maintainer (RZM) agreement cost increased by 33,33%. For the record, the RZM agreement was a zero dollar contract between the NTIA and VeriSign before the IANA Stewardship transition, and when it was terminated, another contract (the agreement) has been signed between ICANN and VerSign, and it was a paid one. We don’t find it reasonable that the cost of this contract increases by more than 30% in one single year.
In the Planned capital projects for FY18 (Page 16), it is mentioned that $ 300,000 are allocated to the ICANN & At-Large website platforms enhancement. We strongly believe that this information should be further detailed to separate the cost of the At-Large website platform enhancement fro the ICANN’s one for more clarity and transparence.
The ALAC has recently appointed a liaison to the GAC. To be efficient and to fully accomplish his important role, the liaison needs a travel funding for all ICANN meetings.
Also, the ALAC requests that 5 additional travel support slots to ICANN meetings be allocated to At-Large active contributors. This is based on the At-Large Review analysis that we need to bring more community workers other than the ALAC and RALO leaders. We note the great growth in travel funding for other groups and in particular the GNSO over the last eight years and this year's approval of a pilot program to bring WG Chairs (or comparable people) to ICANN meetings (Request FY18-22).
