Abolish the Event Budget

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Patroklus Murakami
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Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Patroklus Murakami »

As part of my election manifesto, I've proposed abolishing the events budget and returning the money saved to our citizens. This post is to explain why I think this is necessary and what I would suggest we do instead.

The first thing to note is that we spend a *lot* of money on events as a community. According to our financial statements we spent L$500k on 'Event Expenses' in 2010. We have been somewhat more frugal in 2011 but have still managed to spend L$90k from January to September.

We raise the money to fund events through the tier payments we require of our citizens. In effect, we tax our citizens to pay for events. At a time when the world economy is in crisis and people find it hard to make ends meet, I think we should cut out entirely this kind of discretionary expenditure and use the savings to fund a tier decrease for our citizens. Let's put the money back in people's pockets and let them decide what to do with it.

Now, some of the justification for events funding is that it advertises the CDS to newcomers and the events are fun for those who attend them. I think we could still hold events, perhaps even more of them. But let's fund them via private sponsorship from CDS businesses and/or voluntary contributions from those who can afford to contribute. It should be for civil society groups (i.e. something akin to a charity) to raise the money for Oktoberfest and other events rather than via compulsory taxation.

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Abolish Civil Service Salaries

Post by Patroklus Murakami »

We established some (fairly small) stipends for civil service positions a few years ago. I couldn't find the exact budget line which covers this so it's difficult to say how much this costs us. I'd guess it's around L$2-3000 a month at most. I think the CDS government needs to tighten its belt so I propose that we abolish these payments and pass on the savings in tier reductions. It won't save a lot but it's right to look for ways to trim expenditure wherever we can.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Cindy Ecksol »

Patroklus Murakami wrote:

Now, some of the justification for events funding is that it advertises the CDS to newcomers and the events are fun for those who attend them. I think we could still hold events, perhaps even more of them. But let's fund them via private sponsorship from CDS businesses and/or voluntary contributions from those who can afford to contribute. It should be for civil society groups (i.e. something akin to a charity) to raise the money for Oktoberfest and other events rather than via compulsory taxation.

Speaking as a performer, here's the thing: when you put out a tip jar and ask people to contribute voluntarily, they really don't do so well. But of course they keep coming to events. Part of the reason for BEING a community is to be able to sponsor events that are fun for all and that have the dual purpose of attracting non-members to the community. Knowing that a performer or DJ has already been compensated at a reasonable level for contributing her skills to the event makes it easier for community members to participate. They're already "paid up" and ideally they'd spend all of their time at exciting community events with only an occasional visit to events elsewhere.

I'd argue that we haven't done enough to maximize the potential of the events budget and ought to be getting more creative. Remember when Naftali built the bumper car pavillion and we had some live events there? That was big fun even if it was a little crazy -- both the live music (with Naf and I egging on the drivers) and the crashing, exploding bumper cars. It was creative and exciting and different...and Naf should have been paid for it if she wasn't. I'm not saying that every event has to be like that, but a DJ or performer with a dance or a concert isn't always what's called for. This is Second LIfe where anything is possible, so I'm sure we can do better.

Yeah, everyone should be encouraged to use the tip jar. But that's primarily for non-citizens: those of us who are community members ought to be free to attend knowing that the performer has already been compensated.

Cindy

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Beathan »

Pat --

I have to disagree with you on this one. There are two kinds of communal entities in Secondlife -- estates and groups. Estates are places where people have a virtual house, possibly with land use restrictions. Groups are organizations of people engaged in some shared activities -- possibly located on land owned by the group or possibly landless and free-roaming. Thus, groups are characterized by activities and events; estates by structures.

The CDS is a hybrid of both and should remain so. I would hate to see the CDS become merely some estate with a clunky way of setting land use restrictions. Without events, I think that there is nothing else we can be.

I would, however, support some scrutiny and policing of events to makes sure that they fit what our group identity is. That is -- events should be tailored to fit either our estates (as in historical or culturally appropriate events -- such as Octoberfest) or our political project (as in educational, discussion, or other events concerning virtual government in general and virtual democracy in particular).

However, to create clarity in setting the parameters for proper events that are worth public support (and funding) we should start not by targeting the event budget, but rather by developing a more clear understanding of who we are as a community. That is -- work on redefining our Vision or Mission Statement not merely as nice-sounding words, but as a working statement that we can use to test the appropriateness of public support for activities in our sims.

That said, I would also like to work on licensing (at some cost) private events and activities as a source of revenue for the sim. For instance, while the CDS as a whole should not underwrite a Secondlife danceclub, I think that we should allow at least one on proper licensing (and possibly for a surcharge fee in addition to ordinary tier). Other events or activities, even if different from the core activities we would publicly support or fund, could be similarly licensed. That would allow for a broad range of activities -- both public and private -- while preserving and even enhancing the financial strength of our community and project.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Patroklus Murakami »

Thanks for your comments. I didn't expect this to be a hugely popular policy proposal but I still think its the right thing to do. Just to be clear, I'm not proposing that we abolish events. I like events and have enjoyed many of them in my time in the CDS. I just don't think it's fair to tax people and insist that they subsidise these activities without asking them first!

I would like to see private sector activity and fundraising replace taxation. We could have CDS businesses sponsor events such as Oktoberfest in return for advertising and promotion. We could have private citizens put their contribution into the fund in return for a mention when sponsors are thanked. If that's what people want, they would contribute.

I would be happy to do a bit of market research before making a change like this though. We could ask CDS businesses if they would be prepared to sponsor events and how much. We could have a referendum to ask citizens if they're happy to fund events. We could make paying the event portion of tier voluntary. I think there are lots of options here. And we could end up with more money for even more exciting and interesting events.

By the way, I don't want to accuse anyone of spending wildly. I think some of the events described so far are creative rather than extravagant and this year the government has clearly had value for money in mind.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Tor Karlsvalt »

Just a few points.

I am not in favor of abolishing the event budget. Granted, I have not been one to overspend on events. I have always relied on citizen volunteers to host events and kept costs to a minimum. I have also tried to have a variety of acts in order to attract different people to the sims. I and my team have hosted some good, well attended events during the last year. They do give the CDS some presence in SL and also provide an avenue for our own artists to perform. This last is very important to me as I believe one function of CDS government should be to provide a platform for artistic expression in the form of Art, (MoCA), building (public building) and music (events).

I do wish events were better attended by citizenry. Events are used to introduce the wider SL to CDS. They are a good platform for all citizens to engage SL residents and introduce new citizens to CDS. Many are very interested.

I must point out that we have reduced tier considerably in the last term. This largely thanks to the efforts of my Asst. Treasurer and commerce coordinator. Mind this tier reduction was not unanimous in RA. Still it has proved to be a good thing for old and new citizens of CDS.

I must point out however, that I do think vendors and private citizens should sponsor some events. I think this would be good for all and further tighten the bonds between us. It is my hope that in the coming year, I can organize CDS participation in perhaps some charity work.

I would not abolish government salaries. They are really very meager when counted against the personal treasure and hours team members spend, preparing budgets, organizing events, creating signs, organizing projects, spending personal funds on uploads, expending personal prims for offices, purchasing kiosks, maintaining sims, restarting sims, teraforming, policing the sims for griefers, returning garbage prims, resetting tier boxes and probably numerous other activities. I could probably go on and on. I commend all of the people who have contributed so much in the past as members of the exec. The stipend is merely a token of appreciation that we can well afford.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Beathan »

I have to admit being confused by the civil service salaries we pay. They strike me as too small to be financially meaningful to the recipient and yet large enough to have a fiscal impact on our community. That seems to me to be the worst of both worlds.

I think that we need to acknowledge and thank people who contribute to and serve our community. The salary might be conceived as doing that -- but I think it fails in that purpose, too, because it is an invisible process rather than one of real recognition.

I would rather shift back to another way of honoring people who contribute to our community, which would allow us to focus on more communal public expenditures. (I'm not sure. Might seem too totalitarian, even if keeping in with the architecture themes, but a Hall of Statues of public servants with plaques showing their terms of service might fit the bill.)

That said, I have never held a CDS position that had a salary, so I might be misassessing both the psychological impact of recognition by salary and the financial impact of that salary on the recipients. If salaries are so meaningful that we would lose active citizens or reduce public service if they were abolished, then we should keep them.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Bells Semyorka »

Patroklus Murakami wrote:

Now, some of the justification for events funding is that it advertises the CDS to newcomers and the events are fun for those who attend them. I think we could still hold events, perhaps even more of them. But let's fund them via private sponsorship from CDS businesses and/or voluntary contributions from those who can afford to contribute. It should be for civil society groups (i.e. something akin to a charity) to raise the money for Oktoberfest and other events rather than via compulsory taxation.

I've sat back and watched this tread grow and decided to add my two cents in. While I agree with your statement about funding events that advertise CDS I don't believe that we will get enough merchant/volunteer support from within our community for funding. We need to help our merchants by bringing traffic into CDS.

In regards to adding more events we could host several low cost and in some cases free events. Classes and Lectures are the first thing that come to my mind as a solution. (and mentioned within my platform for chancellor) By asking for volunteers to become teachers and facilitators for a classes or lectures we can bring in residents from SL as well as help provide more education to our newer citizens. We have such a large variety of talent within our community that needs to be shared.

Instructors or Facilitators could rez their own tip jar and ask for donations for their time. (If they wish) Instructors could teach on any subject they would wish such as language, clothing design, object creation the list goes on. I know that we have one citizen that provides regular lectures on nutrition. We also have another citizen that is willing to teach a language classes. I'm sure there are more that are willing to volunteer and provide a service to our community.

I do feel a CDS education class is essential above everything else. I have asked a couple of the newer residents about their thought of CDS, a lot have not been given any guidance to CDS. They do not know what areas of public land are available to them or how to access the forums. They have a strong desire to learn about our community if we only provide them with the tools to do so.

As for the funding of major public events like concerts, Oktoberfest fest and the upcoming Floralia (spring), we should explore the options of all types of funding, both public and private sponsors for these events or a combination of both.

I do feel we should be utilizing all areas of SL to promote these events as well as non traditional ones such as social networking. We need to invite bloggers to cover and provide promotion as well as media news sites related to Second Life. We should also take the opportunity to provide information on CDS, land Sales, and citizen ship as well as our history during these events so people that are not familiar with CDS have the opportunity to learn more about us.

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Re: Abolish Civil Service Salaries

Post by Callipygian »

Patroklus Murakami wrote:

We established some (fairly small) stipends for civil service positions a few years ago. I couldn't find the exact budget line which covers this so it's difficult to say how much this costs us. I'd guess it's around L$2-3000 a month at most. I think the CDS government needs to tighten its belt so I propose that we abolish these payments and pass on the savings in tier reductions. It won't save a lot but it's right to look for ways to trim expenditure wherever we can.

A little history here,provided as part of the dialogue around this subject.

02-20-2006 12:50
This issue in the budget currently being prepared for 2006 has engendered a variety of opinions. Since we hope to present a budget for approval at the Wednesday meeting of the RA, I'm posting this here so that opinions can narrow down to clear options which the RA can decide between at the meeting.

As can be seen from the forum discussions on this topic, no clear and simple characteristic distinguishes politicians and statespeople from bureaucratic laborers. Therefore, for the purpose of developing a spare, cautious budget, this proposal draws a distinction between (1) those who hold offices of decision-making authority in one of the three branches of government, and (2) those whose role is to perform the labor that enables those branches to happen, but who must receive their direction from members of (1). I propose that for the short term, members of (1) receive no compensation, while members of (2) receive some (necessarily) small monthly amount. At this phase of our evolution, its seems entirely possible and appropriate that one person may hold a paying job and a non-paying job.

City Government of Neualtenburg
----------------------

Representative Assembly (RA)
-----------------------------
Leader of the RA (LRA) n/p
Members of the RA n/p
Secretary/Archivist of the RA /p @ 1000/mon

The Guild (AC)
------------------------------
Guildmaster n/p
Masters and Apprentices n/p
Treasurer/Estate Manager /p @ 1000/mon
Webmaster /p @ 1000/mon

Scientific Council (SC)
------------------------------------
Dean n/p
Professors n/p
Secretary/Archivist of the SC /p @ 1000/mon

As written, this proposal entails expenditures of L$4000/month for human resources. Since this is our first ever budget, I suggest that this matter be examined again after June 30 to determine whether it meets the needs appropriately.

Sudane

Plus ca change.. :)

I think a couple things are relevant here. The description Sudane gives of the difference between decision makers and labourers seems quite valid to me today, 5 years later.
This post is also about the first budget of the precursor to CDS (Sudane, please correct me if I am wrong), so was written at a time when our community had far less income and far less reserve funds, but still saw value in offering some token 'payment' to those doing labour for the community- an amount at that time which would have been a far higher percentage of the total budget. It also points out that paying people for these positions in not a recent evil :)

Those payments are a pittance really, well below any sort of minimum wage payed for Real World hours of labour. In SL however, 1000L a month might purchase an outfit or two, a piece of art, tip a performer - contribute to the economy. There is no guarantee that money will be spent on those things within CDS of course, but since many in a community support their own community, I am guessing some of it will.

Times are indeed tough and potentially a citizen drawing one of these stipends may be using it to pay their tier. While many of us are fortunate enough not to have to have a business in SL to support our participation here, or have businesses in world that generate enough income to cover our expenses, that isn't true for everyone. For those who don't need the money or don't want to take it on principle, they can always return the payment as a donation to CDS. For those who choose or need to keep it, they should feel free to do so with no sitgma or question.

So, I'd like to see the practise of payment for labour remain in place. That said, I feel that some over the years have certainly drawn these payments and not performed even a minimal amount of the duties required. Instead of throwing out both baby and bath water however, lets find a way to make people acccountable for the work they receive payment for.

Calli

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Trebor Warcliffe »

Calli,

Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. While reading your post a thought popped into my mind. Why do some of our citizens view a civil service position of the CDS different than any other service provider in the CDS? When we host an event in the CDS and we use CDS talent we don't demand they provide their services for free. A live musician makes 4,000 to 6,000 lindens for an hour worth of entertainment and we're expecting other citizens to provide hours of work each month for free when we were only paying these citizens a measly L$2,600 a month. As Assistant Treasurer why would my talents, abilities, and hard work be any less valuable than a citizen who entertains us?

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Rosie Gray »

Exactly, Trebor. These tokens are just that, token payments that acknowledge the many hours of work that a person puts in on these jobs that are really volunteer. It shows appreciation and respect for people's time and talents.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Beathan »

If these payments are tokens -- they are a serious problem. A token would have little real impact on the life of the person paid. However, they have a serious and significant impact on the CDS budget. Surely we can find some equally meaningful recognition of effort with less of a burden on our budget.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Aliasi Stonebender »

Other than maintaining the existence of the regions themselves, Pat, what the hell else do we HAVE to spend the money on?

We could roll it into tier reductions, sure. Except then we're just an off-brand Anshe Chung. If she's even doing her thing, still - I admit I'm not up to date on the land barons these days, haven't needed to be. :)

My active hours, due to work and such, are far from the 'main' hours of Second Life unless I took up Russian, but I still believe in the events as an idea, as a thing to make the CDS a community as opposed to a bunch of people who virtually live on the same CPU. Simply put, Pat, do we have a currently existing problem with the budget of such magnitude that we need to consider these ideas, quite apart from the rhetoric about 'how the world is in hard financial times'?

In the early days, merely being democratic-ish and faction politics was enough to attract people, but to grow we have to go beyond those interested in role-playing parlimentary procedure to those who are pretty okay with the idea of having a say in how things are run but don't make it their single, all-consuming passion. Events help with that, and making sure the performer is compensated helps further.

As for the token payments, eh. I use mine as an effective tier reduction anyways, and that's what I intially proposed AS a "token payment" way back in the day. Changing that so we have less "swapping a dollar back and forth and claiming we're doing millions in business" is okay by me; eliminating them entirely not so much. Keeping it token enough that someone won't choose to do the job for the money is a good idea; not giving them anything for it is a quick way to the serial burnout we've seen so often.

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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Trebor Warcliffe »

Beathan,

I have to disagree with you. Compared to RL pay $10.40 is a mere token for the amount of work some of these positions perform. But in SL, for some of us it's more than a token. I'll use myself as an example. I own two parcels in Alpine Meadow which cost me approximately L$5,044 a month. That "token" payment was slightly over 50% of my tier.

Considering I have no other source of income in SL that 50% comes in handy. Now you "claim" that this expense has "a serious and significant impact on the CDS budget" but you provide no proof of this claim. What do you feel is a significant impact? How much of a percentage of total revenue do you feel salary expense begins to have a significant impact on the budget? 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent? Let's say you have a small town whose revenue averages $100,000 a month. Obviously this small town needs to pay its civil servants otherwise the town would cease to operate. Is $10,000 a month a significant amount on a $100,000 revenue?

$10,000 of $100,000 is only 10 percent. Would you be comfortable if the CDS was only paying 10% of its revenue for salaries? 10 lindens out for every 100 lindens in.

Here are the actual facts in regards to the impact of our salaries compared to total revenue. For 2009 the CDS had total revenue of US$ 20,852.54 and paid out in salaries a whopping US$ 353.23. That's 1.69% of total revenue. For 2010 the CDS had total revenue of US$ 23,185.03 and paid out in salaries US$ 344.67. That's 1.49% of total revenues.

Late 2010 the increase in salaries from L$1,000 to L$ 2,500 and L$ 2,600 came into effect. As of October 31st our total revenue is US$ 13,634.02 and paid out in salaries is US$ 606.07. Even that significant increase in pay is only 4.45%.

I also ask you if these amounts carry such a significant impact on the CDS budget than how, as of October 31st 2011 do we have US$ 14,670.55 between all three accounts.

I can assure my fellow citizens I'm one of the most anal people when it comes to responsible fiscal management. I remind all of you of the 60 plus hours I spent researching other sims tier structures along with working on calculations to not only reduce our tier to a more competitve level so we don't amass so much in reserves and to have our prim rate be equal between single prim land and double prim land. This is one area where we don't need to be cutting corners on.

As we expand our community I will be carefully monitoring all monies coming in and all monies going out. We are a community, we are not land barons. Granted we are also not a non-profit entity but I don't feel we need to be generating an annual net profit of 15 to 20 percent a year. Even this year with the rollercoaster we've been on our year-to-date net profit is a respectable 9.41 percent or US$ 1,276.55.

So if anyone can provide me with cold hard facts on why we shouldn't continue to pay a select few individuals who spend many hours performing their jobs a "token" salary, not based on personal feelings or opinions, I will be more than happy to listen. The numbers don't lie.

Thank you,
Trebor Warcliffe
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Re: Abolish the Event Budget

Post by Beathan »

Aliasi,

I see your points and I mostly agree.

First, I think you are absolutely right on the importance of the events and the event budget. Events are good expenditures -- especially if they attract new people to our sims, invigorate the spirit of current citizens, or provide a cultural center and definition for the CDS. I think that, at their best, they do all of these things. We need to make sure that we do events right so that they do all those things, and I don't think we can do them right if we starve them by stripping away their budgets.

I also agree that, to the extent we need to hire talent for our events, we need to either pay market rate or rely on the native talent of people with the good will to volunteer. I would hope that CDS citizens would have enough public spirit to perform for a reduced rate (say 50% of the usual rate), and, other things being equal, I would favor hiring such public spirited citizens.

Stipends for governmental officers are a little different. I would be fine with allowing service instead of tier. However, given that some citizens own multiple parcels, and other citizens own more or less expensive single parcels, I would prefer to set a governmental stipend, if we have one, at the monthly average tier for all lots in the CDS.

That said, unlike events, I would rather see our public offices filled without stipend, out of a spirit of public service. If people need more motivation, I would rather engage in public recognition rather than stipends. In real life, politicians are often recognized by having their names associated with buildings, project, events, or activities. That has been the case for all of history -- back to early Greece. I would rather go in that direction.

Trebor --

I would consider 1% to be significant. Any money spent on stipends for officials is money we cannot spend on events, outreach, expansion, building upgrades, etc. I would rather reward our public servants differently -- off budget.

However, to give this analytical weight, I will consider your proposed budget AFTER removing linden tier. (That is, not as percent of total budget, but as percent of discretionary budget.) I see that we would pay government officials nearly 1/4 of our discretionary budget. We would pay them a total of more than half of our event budget -- and more than twice what we spend on major festivals. I would rather abolish pay for officials and add two more major festivals.

We also are not really setting aside funds for expansion or reconstruction, and we need to be. When that is considered, I don't see that we are making a profit at all. Rather, I see that we are reserving less than 10% for expansion and redevelopment. I would rather see that number be 15% or even 20%.

That said, I can understand that our tier might be difficult for some people -- either because of their rl finances or because they have restrictions funding their SL account and have no inworld income. Rather than provide stipends indiscriminately to government officials, I would rather provide tier waivers to citizens with demonstrable need -- a CDS version of social housing, if you will.

Beathan

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