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CIP-???? | Social Governance - Budget Guardrails #936

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One of the most obvious points of "Social Governance" in the current draft version of the Cardano Constitution is the definition, ratification, and execution of an annual "Treasury Budget".

This CIP aims to address and define some guardrails and expectations that we, the Cardano Community, agree to require of any proposed Cardano Budget action and its administrators and the subsequent and related Treasury Withdrawals associated with said budgets.

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* Initial Commit of Draft Budget Guardrails language
* Minor tweaks for language clarity and clear rule delineation
* Add a few new rules
* Fixing title to match the style of similar CIPs
@Crypto2099 Crypto2099 self-assigned this Nov 7, 2024
@AdaLink-io
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One edit for your consideration:

“… a singular entity SHALL NOT administer more than 50% of any budget or budget category.”

@rphair
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rphair commented Nov 8, 2024

@Crypto2099 looking forward to a posted issue ASAP about the implications & guidelines for the implied creation of a Governance category as per prior #935 (comment) ... we can post pending remarks on "Governance CIPs" in that issue rather than here or in the related CPS. Marking Triage to kick these off together at next CIP meeting: https://hackmd.io/@cip-editors/100

@rphair rphair added the State: Triage Applied to new PR afer editor cleanup on GitHub, pending CIP meeting introduction. label Nov 8, 2024
CIP-XXXX/README.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved
@binh1981
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binh1981 commented Nov 8, 2024

A budget proposal MUST specify its validity period. A budget proposal MUST NOT have a validity period longer than net change period time.

This might be too restrictive as some research might take more than 1 year as Charles have mentioned? For Research budget we can maybe have an exception on validity period but restriction to below 10% of the Net Change Limit?

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A budget proposal MUST specify its validity period. A budget proposal MUST NOT have a validity period longer than net change period time.

This might be too restrictive as some research might take more than 1 year as Charles have mentioned? For Research budget we can maybe have an exception on validity period but restriction to below 10% of the Net Change Limit?

It becomes too complex and difficult for DReps and CC members to track what budget has been earmarked 2, 3, 4, or 5 years in the past that should now be funded in the future. If research is valuable last year and continues to need funding to continue into this year then it should naturally be part of the next budget cycle that will get approved and allotted during the specified budget period.

@binh1981
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binh1981 commented Nov 8, 2024

A budget proposal MUST specify its validity period. A budget proposal MUST NOT have a validity period longer than net change period time.
This might be too restrictive as some research might take more than 1 year as Charles have mentioned? For Research budget we can maybe have an exception on validity period but restriction to below 10% of the Net Change Limit?

It becomes too complex and difficult for DReps and CC members to track what budget has been earmarked 2, 3, 4, or 5 years in the past that should now be funded in the future. If research is valuable last year and continues to need funding to continue into this year then it should naturally be part of the next budget cycle that will get approved and allotted during the specified budget period.

That would be the job of the Budget Committee, basically the Budget Committee acts like a Chief Accountant in a Business, this should be a fairly easy job for most average accountant. This bucket will be proposed by the Product Committee and reviewed by the Budget Committee, DReps & CC can trust these two committee to do their jobs and vote to replace these committees if necessary? This would offer a balanced trade-off for longer commitment, especially if we limit this bucket to below 10% of the TOTAL budget.


A budget administrator and custodian, in total, **MUST NOT** charge more than 5%
of the total budget amount for administrative costs. All administrative costs
**MUST** be defined as part of the budget proposal.
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Perhaps the Civic Committee can draft a Guideline on Compensation for Committee Members, since this will form the bulk of Administrator Fees

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This naively (IMO) assumes that Intersect will be the only budget proposer and/or administrator. Other future administrators of budget may not have committees and other things but may still charge some amount of administration fees.

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agreed, this is independent issue but the bulk of administrators will likely be from Intersect or another MBO, which should still have a guideline on compensations for transparency and to filter out those who try to find ways to embezzle treasury.


##### Definition

Every _Treasury Withdrawal Action_ **MUST** reference a ratified and currently
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A Treasury Withdrawal Action can reference MULTIPLE ratified & currently valid Budget Info Action since we combine those withdrawal to reduce number of votings for DRep & CC.

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Maybe...

Every _Treasury Withdrawal Action_ **MUST** reference one or more ratified and currently...

??? We'll need to add a bit more language here as well to specify that the withdrawal should specify which outputs map to which budget(s)?

##### Definition

A budget proposal **MUST** specify its validity period. A budget proposal
**MUST NOT** have a validity period longer than _net change period_ time.
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"Budget category" is confusing, it is better to use consistent term "bucket". In case there are many small budgets proposed within a year, maybe we can specify as follow

A singular entity SHALL NOT administer more than 50% of the Net Change Limit within the same Net Change Period.
A singular vendor SHALL NOT receive more than 50% of the Net Change Limit within the same Net Change Period
A singular vendor SHALL NOT receive more than 85% of the budget allocated to each bucket within the same Net Change Period.

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This is a really interesting one... I suppose a glossary of common terms may also be required here. IMO "bucket" is good for visualization purposes so I understand why it was chosen for the (current) budget process but it does not necessarily translate well (to non-English) in terms of what it actually is.

> Constitution, specifically related to the budgetary process, is modified.

* A budget for ongoing maintenance and future development **MUST** be proposed
once per year. _Budgets **MAY** be proposed more frequently._
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for clarity this should be rephrased as
A budget for ongoing maintenance and future development MUST be proposed
at least once per year.

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Agree with this one and there is another one that I missed that is part of the core Constitution so I will make this change along with that one! Thanks for spotting!

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rphair commented Nov 11, 2024

Removing Triage label as per #937 (comment) until this issue achieves CIP editor quorum & community consensus:

@rphair rphair removed the State: Triage Applied to new PR afer editor cleanup on GitHub, pending CIP meeting introduction. label Nov 11, 2024
@JackB888
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Excellent CIP and in support. An area that I think requires more thought and adjustment is “Decentralised processes” as I find some contradictions within this CIP.

A budget proposal MUST designate one or more administrators who will be responsible for the oversight process

VS

To promote equitable access to Treasury funds and mitigate risk, no singular entity SHOULD be administrator for more than 85% of any budget or budget category. The remaining balance MAY be assigned to an alternate administrator as part of the budget proposal or MAY be left unassigned and left to community determination via direct Treasury Withdrawal proposals.

How I'm interpreting this, we can't leave 15%+ "unassigned" and the whole budget proposed would need to have at least two administrators if we stick with the 85% cap.

Separately, do we see an issue with the budget proposer also being the administrator? I.e. submitter of a budget info action also named as administrator.

Overall, I think it provides a very good standard and framework.

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5 participants