From this morning's CC meeting: CC is looking at a possible budget surplus next FY due to discontinuing the developer position (Mikhal) and expected reductions in AWS costs (details). There was discussion about asking the other councils for input on possible spending priorities, and CC would discuss again at their next meeting in 2w. From the minutes:
Options for spending $150,000 - $200,000 in FY24?
Pay for other needed positions in the organization?
Buy out part/half time of individuals to perform needed functions?
in Maccabee Levine's opinion the TC should make a proposal/recommendation. We often bemoan that the TC doesn't control resourses, and this is an opportunity to do just that.
Maccabee Levine the intent of this meeting isn't to generate a proposal per se, but rather to try and reach agreement on what we may want to generate a proposal on. We can then let the CC know that we're working on a proposal for "X".
Marc Johnson EBSCO/Kitfox are largely propping up the hosted reference environments
Kitfox does the vast majority of support work for all of these environments, with Index Data still helping with some of it.
Marc Johnson it would be nice if the community could fund the build infrastructure, hosted reference envs, etc. It's clear the funds aren't there, but this is the "pipe dream"
Maccabee Levine asking for an informal vote on whether or not this idea has merit and we should consider creating a proposal for it?
Jenn Colt this idea is potentially less controversial... the project paying for a thing has fewer considerations than the project paying a person. (Contract length, are these positions perpetual? etc.)
Maccabee Levine the project is funding a technical documentation person
Marc Johnson this is funded differently, money provided by members explicitly for this purpose
An informal vote was taken
mixed results, but there weren't any "nos". There were some "unsures"
Community Developer Advocate
Marc Johnson the PC is working on a proposal for something similar, e.g. a "dev lead"
Marc Johnson Yes, the list of things here are important and not really being done
Maccabee Levine allocating less than 100% of a persons time gives the project flexibility
Maccabee Levine In my mind the roles are perpetual, but not necessarily by the same person. It could be filled by one person for 6months, then someone else steps in, etc.
Craig McNally it's difficult to manage partial allocations... How do you keep track of how they're spending their time? Are you really getting 50%? 25% less than that? Is there any oversight?
Maccabee Levine plans to reach out to those who voted not or unsure to see if there are way to improve/clarify/rework the idea
Craig McNally : we can consider putting this on the agenda for Wednesday, but the concern is that we won't be able to keep it timeboxed and it will end up consuming the entire meeting.