Moderator: SC Moderators
I regret not being able to upload the budget that afternoon of the 11th.
The proposed budget has been posted at the following link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... y=CK2lpqMD
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ar?&aut ... vNWU-Qpwyo
It is my hope that quick work can be done on the budget at the RA meeting of the 19th.
Thanks
Tor
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What I always like to see is a comparison between the proposed budget and the actual expenditures for the preceding two years along with a disclosure as to what has been approved as "budgeted" for previous two years. That demonstration is what most NGO's I work with do for their boards. I do that in my own business affairs. In a group endeavor like CDS it is really important, as it gives the body something to review to determine the wisdom of the proposal. I note there are no comparisons provided in the presented budget. How is the body to decide the wisdom of the proposal? By guess and by golly?
While I don't pretend to understand why there are so many musical events when we have so few people, my larger concern is a check on the amount of tier now being paid in as well as that paid out. Given the large amount of unsold property, there should be a footnote about how long its going to take to get these foreclosed properties off the CDS books as a negative. I believe the Chancellor owes the population an explanation, so it's representatives can protect the interests of the community. Specifically a statement that shows that the proposed income figure takes into account these dormant properties, and considers the impact of the lack of income from the excess property. As I understood the reserve, it is not to be retained to cover unsold properties, but to provide a fund to expand CDS.
Fair winds and following seas.
Soro
Chancellor Karlsvalt as a citizen of the CDS I’d like to personally thank you for your fast actions in putting together a proposed budget for the 14th term. A proposed budget within 12 days of the start of the term must be some kind of record. If I remember correctly the 12th term never had a proposed budget and the earliest I can find a record of a budget in the 13th term was over three months into the term, Sunday September 12, 2010 at 9:38pm to be exact. http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 987#p16455 Even though this link states that this was the “former” budget for the 13th term I can’t find this budget posted anywhere else. It’s almost like this budget was created in hindsight. But that’s neither here nor there. You have come right out of the gate and taken the reins of your position and I commend you for that.
BusinessDictionary.com defines the term budget as follows, “estimate of costs, revenues, and resources over a specified period, reflecting a management’s reading of future financial conditions. One of the most important administrative tools, a budget serves also as a (1) plan of action for achieving quantified objectives, (2) standard for measuring performance, and (3) device for coping with foreseeable adverse situations.” In my opinion a budget isn’t necessarily written in stone. It’s sort of like a game plan for a football or soccer game. You try to plan for the future but you are aware that things may or may not happen that may change your game plan.
Rose I will preface the following with this statement. I have nothing but respect for you and what you have done in and for the CDS and the AA SIMS for that matter, but I personally feel that your response to Tor’s budget, I’m struggling to find the right words but can I say kind of out of line? From the looks of it, and this is only an assumption on my part, it looks like Tor basically took the last terms budget and tweaked it where he felt it needed to be tweaked, in order to present a proposed budget for this term. There is nothing wrong with that. It helps to have a foundation to build upon.
You ask the RA to look carefully at the budget and you have an issue to the amount allocated for musical and cultural events. I draw your attention to the “former budget” I linked to earlier. The amount allocated in that budget for program expenses, musician fees, and distribution to regional committees is $51,166L. If you look at this budget which we are suppose to assume was for the 13th term from the beginning when in reality it wasn’t because it doesn’t include any of the AA SIMS in it. This budget was clearly produced after the dissolution of the CDS merger. I now bring your attention to the “revised” budget for the 13th term which was presented by our chancellor on Saturday September 11, 2010 at 11:06pm the amount budgeted for the exact same thing jumped to $67,000L which is $8,000L more a month than our current chancellor is proposing.
Month Budgeted Spent
June 51,166 21,500
July 51,166 22,500
August 67,000 27,000
September 67,000 113,047
October 66,400 71,000
Totals 302,732 255,047
As you can see from last term just because it is budgeted doesn’t necessarily mean that is what is going to be spent. Even with the excessive expenditures in September and October the five out of the six months were under budget by $47,685.
http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3125
http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3165
http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3133
Soro I do not know you personally at all in SL. I think we may have run across each other once or twice in the past but I honestly don’t remember having any type of in depth conversations with you as I have with Rose in the past. I do not know your personal accomplishments in the CDS but I will basically state like I did to Rose that I in no way mean any disrespect to you in my response.
I think your idea of “a comparison between the proposed budget and the actual expenditures for the preceding two years along with a disclosure as to what has been approved as budgeted for previous two years” a wonderful idea. Is this something that you can make happen and bring to the table? If someone has a good idea why can’t they take the reins so to speak and make it happen? I became a citizen of the CDS and noticed there was nothing in place that showed which citizen owned which parcel. I took the initiative and developed my CDS Citizen/Owners List and uploaded it to Google Docs for all to see. This term I hope to have it available directly on the portal.
There are many issues that are worthy of the Chancellor’s and the RA’s attention this quarter. Possible restructuring of tiers is certainly one that needs to be looked at. Even more so is the question of why are we selling repossessed property for the same amount we sold it the first time around when it was a brand new SIM? You have a parcel that you’ve already covered your expenses and possibly a small profit on and you repossess that parcel and put it on the market for the same amount again? Pure profit may be a nice idea but I feel lots of yellow splotches on our maps and the lack of tier income from those yellow splotches outweighs the pure profit concept.
Let us allow our Chancellor to get his bearings before we put his feet into the fire. Let us all work together as a team or dare I say as a family and see how well we can take our little place in the SL world and make it better. Thank you.
Trebor Warcliffe
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Posting a budget for CDS is a good thing and as Trebor points out, a rather new practice for CDS.
I agree it would be good to have information on past expenditures in CDS. Sonja has provided some data, but I don't see any organized information beyond her postings or the treasurer's monthly postings in the portal. We just don't have that kind of data. If there is I would appreciate someone pointing it out to me.
I will keep records of expenditures and provide a accounting to the citizens. I do believe this will help future chancellors and representatives. Also, when I leave this position I hope to have an accounting for the new Chancellor.
I am not sure salaries are excessive. These were increased by the prior chancellor and I am reluctant to cut salaries. I am more inclined to review the usefulness of positions or review the effectiveness of office holders in order to ensure the CDS gets sufficient benefit from them.
Money to the cultural commissions has actually been cut. This seems reasonable. As Rose points out, we can have too many events which our citizens attend sparingly. However, events raise our profile in Second Life. Events should market our vacant parcels and introduce people to our sims and what makes us unique--Democracy. Also, amounts for entertainment were kept rather high in part because having events is one way to return some sort of value to residents.
Naturally, the budget here is a proposal that must be reviewed and passed upon by the RA. I consider it only a blueprint. Thus, changes can be made. One change we could consider is a reduction in the amounts set aside to the cultural commissions and Cultural/Music events. If they are halved to 10,000 and 14,000, respectively, then we cold put the savings and the reserve set aside toward offsetting a tier holiday. Relief from tier, for one month of the term, would be one way to return some funds to residents who have owned land for the term. This probably would be easier than revamping our tier structure.
However, I would encourage a discussion on tier rates. I suggest the holiday as a quick and easy way of providing current residents with relief. A holiday, however does not make our parcels more competitive on the market where buyers will look at the monthly tier when deciding to buy.
Rose and Trebor point out that we seem to take in more money than we need for run our events and Linden tier. This is the case, even taking into account unsold properties. The RA should take up the question of our tier being high. While it may not be much higher than some sims, it may be higher than we actually need at present. This might be a difficult question to put before the RA very early in the term. I request that the RA first establish a budget and then work on modifying tier.
Tor
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Rose Springvale wrote:...THAT budget was a major change from our former expenditures in CDS"
Rose, in what way or ways was that budget a major change from our former expenditures in the CDS?
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I have seen these in the past. And I think made several available during last term. I also noted comments there where we were not spending enough and paying office holders too little.
Tor Karlsvalt wrote:
I can't open the second document. I would like to know how much money the CDS can spend (tier - LL fees - reserve).
At the RA meeting on Sunday 12/19 the RA members requested a presentation of the current proposed budget along with other CDS budgets from the past. Searching high and low through the forums and using the search engine provided I have gathered up all that was available. The link to Google Docs contains the current proposed budget for the 14th. term, the 3 different budgets used in the 13th. term, a budget that was posted in writing by Jaime Palisades for the 12th. term, and another budget that was posted in writing by Jaime Palisades for the 9th. term. I was unable to find any other budgets in the forums. If anyone would like to provide me with links to other budgets I will be more than happy to work them into the presentation. I have provided the links to the forums for each budget that I have presented. The forum postings are quite detailed so if you have any questions pertaining to each perspective budget then I suggest you read the original forum postings for clarification first. The information that was provided in Jaime's posts I converted to a spreadsheet. I used Sonja's spreadsheets as the basis for mine and thank her personally for providing such a detailed template to work with. I hope my work will allow the RA members to make an informed decision in regards to the 14th. terms proposed budget.
Again ...
I can't open the spreadsheet of Tor (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ar?&aut ... vNWU-Qpwyo). I cannot open the one of Trebor because it's in xlsx format (Vista). People who still have the former version of Office can't read it.
For the debate, please bring readable documents.
Here is my comment about the budget:
The 2 regional committees will get each month 20'000 L$ (10'000 L$ each). This amount doesnt allow the organization of weekly events. It will allow only to have 2 concerts each month.
In the same time, there is an amount of 28'000 L$ for "Community and Music Events". I guess that the Executive will manage this amount of money. It means that the Executive will have more money to organize events than the regional Committtees. I deeply regret this situation, as the Regional Committees were set to organize the in-world animation. I suggest that we balance better these two lines in the budget.
I see also that we sponsor the Radio Riel Volksmusik. Can someone say what is it and why do we have to sponsor it? If it is advertising, is it efficient ? I think that we better use this money for an in-world event, as it is possible to talk directly to the avatars who come.
The Roman Regional Committee would like to organize a Festival in May named Floralia. Will this Festival be financed by the line "Major Events" ?
I am certainly not the person who brings the idea of weekly events in CDS. I was not very in favour of them at the beginning. As I have managed one of them, I have seen the many advantages it brings to a community. I would like also to remind that these events have different goals: they are for the CDS residents who can have an opportunity to meet once a week and they are for people from outside the community who can discover our sims.
Arria I'm not sure but I believe only one of the links in Tor's posting was actually suppose to open. Also in response to you being unable to open my Budget Analysis Spreadsheet, its a Office2007 version I have converted and made a copy of it in Office 97-2003 version. The link for that is here. I hope this helps. https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... 0bUE&hl=en
Thank you, Trebor. I can open your document.