FY09 Budget Registrar Questions

["Nevett, Jonathon" <jnevett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following questions were raised by Registrar Constituency members on
a recent call with ICANN staff and in writing related to the proposed
FY09 budget:

 

1.      What are the details in the following line items of the budget:

*         New TLD expenditures, 

*         Contingency Fund, 

*         bad debt expense estimates, 

*         travel expenses, 

*         ccTLD revenues, and 

*         broadening participation costs?  

2.      We need to add a financial incentive for registrars to
voluntarily sign the new version of the RAA before the scheduled renewal
date due to the increase costs of compliance costs in the new RAA.  

3.      If the Reserve Fund is one year of Operations, what is the
amount of one year of operations?

4.      Why should current registrants pay so disproportionately for New
TLDs this year when that should be self funding?

5.      Why is the 67% of the Reserve Fund not enough at this time
knowing that the New TLD process shortly should provide $10-15M to the
fund?

6.      What are the details that make up the Contingency Fund?  Please
review and reduce.

*         Legal expenses?

*         Board Compensation?

*         Foreign Exchange?

7.      What is the basis for travel support?  How can you justify that
the support for certain groups is disproportional with their
contributions?  Should the GNSO receive the allocation for travel
funding or the constituencies?   

8.      What is the support for bad debt expenses?  Please review and
reduce.

9.      Would it help to complete the introduction of New TLDs faster by
adding some kind of a financial incentive (i.e., don't add to the
reserve fund without New TLD revenue).

 

We look forward to engaging in discussions related to these questions at
the upcoming Paris meeting.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Jon Nevett

Chair, ICANN Registrar Constituency