During the ALAC call yesterday, Olivier suggested that the ALAC make a focused comment on the FY16 budget pointing out that there was no apparent planned increase in Policy Staff (serving among others, At-large and the GNSO), despite what seems to be an increasing need for such staff driven by ramping up workloads on these communities. We received approval to draft such a statement and to submit it on behalf of the ALAC prior to the close of comments at 23:59 today (01 May 2015). Olivier drafted what I thought was a perfect statement which was also supported by several other ALT members. Accordingly I instructed Staff to post it. The formal message can be found at http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-op-budget-fy16-18mar15/msg00008.html and the contents of the statement are reproduced below for your convenience. I thank Olivier for his quick and skillful work on this. Alan ========================== The ALAC thanks the ICANN Finance Department for the significant improvements in the establishment of the proposed budget, specifically when it comes to engaging ICANN Communities at an early stage. The ALAC is satisfied with the Budget proposal as a whole, but has one specific item of concern, related to the evolution of support for ICANN Policy Development. Both the GNSO and the ALAC’s activities are essentially funded under the ICANN Policy budget. Policy Development is a Core activity at ICANN. It is this Multistakeholder Policy Development that differentiates ICANN from any other organisation. The overall budget allocated to Policy Development and supporting the SO/ACs, including constituency travel support, is about 11.4 million US Dollars – a figure derived from the document supplied. Although it is understood that this might not strictly be the total budget for SO/AC Policy Support, this figure constitutes the bulk of its budget. Yet, this is a comparably small figure compared to the overall ICANN Budget expense for the year of 118.6 million US Dollars (113 million US Dollar baseline excluding initiatives) – surprisingly less than 10% of total budget for a Core Activity and Key differentiation factor. The ALAC has significant concerns about the growth of this budget which it believes to be too low. This concern translates directly to concerns about staffing levels. Data in the table on page 9 of the Draft FY16 Budget by Portfolio and Project (“1.1 Resource Allocation”) indicates that in the coming financial year 27 FTEs will support policy development, or around 8% of total FTEs. The budget indicates that 16 new staff hires are expected for FY16, yet, although there appears to be a rise of 1.7 FTE in Policy Support, none of the hires seem to be in Policy Support. Both the GNSO and the ALAC have not seen, nor are they expecting a reduction in their activities. Quite the contrary, the ALAC forecasts a number of new PDPs, review processes, as well as a potential next round of gTLDs which will only serve to increase the demand on already busy Staff. Its Community of At-Large Structures will soon reach the 200 mark – translating to a need for increased support of its increased activity. The ALAC is therefore concerned that this need to increase FTEs supporting Policy both in the GNSO and in the ALAC is not currently reflected in the budget and may lead to both Staff overwork and Community frustration, thus leading to a reduction in Community involvement that risks making long term evolution of the Multistakeholder model unsustainable.