2023-05-08 - Budget Surplus Ideas

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@Craig McNally will take notes today

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Budget Surplus Ideas

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Background:  

From @Maccabee Levine in slack (4/24):

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?

• Dev lead?

See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PK57lgZKxLBdpK5fqN55t3nQneid_9Dzdf2s5SCbYxE/edit

Discussion Notes:

• 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".

• @Maccabee Levine walked us through the document linked above

  • FOLIO Reference Environment:

    • @Maccabee Levine stated that EBSCO funded a significant portion of the AWS bill, via the CC, however it is not known if that pledge is permanent 

    • Q: @Jenn Colt Which category are we talking about rancher / BugFest / development part or the public flower release environment?

    • A: @Maccabee Levine suggested we are talking about the second category

    • @Marc Johnson suggested that if EBSCO stopped partly funding the AWS bill, the surplus would have to go almost entirely to that

    • @Marc Johnson stated that BugFest is completely separate and run on EBSCO kit (and supported by the Kitfox team)

    •  @Marc Johnson stated the Rancher environments are run on community kit and mostly run by the Kitfox team. Whereas the snapshot environments, the ansible boxes, Jenkins and the flower release environments are on community kit and maintained by Index Data and Kitfox together

    • @Marc Johnson suggested that Index Data stepped back into maintaining the flower release environments after discussions with the CC. And believes Index Data have less capacity than they had before to devote to this work

    • @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.)

        • @Marc Johnson agrees.  

        • @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.

    • @Jenn Colt how does this work in practice?

    • @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?

      • @Marc Johnson agrees

      • @Maccabee Levine maybe oversight is a part of the proposal - e.g. have the person report to the TC?

    • An informal vote was taken

      • mixed results - a majority was not met

  • Other ideas?

    • @Craig McNally what about an innovation grant?  FOLIO has had something like this in the past

    • @Maccabee Levine :  @Jeremy Huff had raised a similar idea earlier

• Next steps?

  • @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.