Standard Change - EnviroTrack Development Budget Proposal

[stephenscapelliti]

Description

This is a proposal to authorize a budget for the expenditure of funds toward the development of EnviroTrack.

Problem

EnviroTrack is a community project within the The ProgCode community. It has been a centerpiece of the pitch in the community's efforts to procure grant funding, which resulted in conditional approval of a forthcoming grant which has been disclosed to the ProgCode community. Advancement of the project - which consists of the development of both hardware and software - has been dependent upon expenditures by individual members of the development team, and particularly by Robert Diamond. They include hosting, components, third-party analysis, and related expenses. In the aggregate, these expenditures burden the developers and slow the progress of this important project.

Benefit

Once ProgCode receives funding for operations, the community may consider and approve a budget for each fiscal period which provides funding for key functions such as community projects, services, subscriptions, and staffing. In the meantime, it is necessary to seek community approval on a case-by-case basis for functions that the community deems necessary to ProgCode operations.

Establishing a one-time budget - with the option of amending that budget based on need and available revenues - will enable the community to continue development of this important project and to reimburse certain expenses incurred by the EnviroTrack team members.

Expenditure Analysis

Robert Diamond has incurred at least $545.86 of the costs associated with EnviroTrack. Most of these expenditures were made on an as-needed basis, for the expediency of development, with disclosure to the development team. Robert also has notified at least two of the Directors of these expenditures and of the need for additional expenditures, during Community Operations meetings. Staff Member Arique Aguilar - who is recruiting student members to volunteer on the EnviroTrack team - consulted with Robert regarding the project status and need, and they recommend that the community approve a budget of 2.5 times the amount of current expenditures [$545.86 x 2.5 = $1,364.65].

• Expenditures for Reimbursement - LCSC Shopping Cart - LCSC.COM.pdf

Criteria:

The interim budget for EnviroTrack should provide sufficient funding so as to enable the development team to create and test a sufficient number of air quality monitor units to ensure proof of concept. It should be in an amount sufficient to procure enough components to create and test multiple hardware units.

The requirements of Issues #198 and #236 are applicable, as follows:

Proposals seeking consent for implementation of budget requests and/or change process should not contradict ProgCode core objective and should pass this four-pronged test when considered by operations:
Is this proposal non-partisan in nature? Yes
Is this proposal aligned with ProgCode's mission of removing the influence of big money in politics? Yes
Does this proposal seek to empower the grassroots by supporting the creation of open source tech? Yes
Is this proposal sponsored or funded by an outside organization? If yes, the source of the funding must be disclosed. No

Plan

• Community discussion of all elements of this proposal at the Community Operations Meeting scheduled for Monday, July 11, 2022, at 5pm PT | 6pm MT | 7pm CT | 8pm ET | 1am Tuesday BST/GMT.

• Vote for consent to implement the establishment of a one-time budget of One Thousand Three Hundred Sixty-Four and 65/100 Dollars ($1,364.65) and to authorize the Board of Directors to spend those funds as outlined in this proposal.

• Notify the community of the vote taken by posting a #team-announcement and sharing the video URL in #operations immediately following the vote for consent to proceed, in accordance with ProgCode procedures, allowing additional votes & feedback during the standard 72-hour waiting period before ratifying the vote.

• If the vote to implement passes, the community shall reimburse Robert Diamond in the amount of $545.86 from the proceeds and thereafter make expenditures with notice to the community in both the #envirotrack-project and #team-announcements channels.

• Retain this issue as an open issue for possible amendment or termination of the budget at a later date.

Decision Making

Consent to implement a standard change per the Change Process

Optional Information

Reference link(s)

• Change Process
• Funding Framework FY 2016-17: Budget Breakdown
• Proposed 2018/19 Budget Breakdown

Community Discussion History

• 02.26.2017 - Issue #81 "Funding Framework"
• 05.15.2017 - Issue #198 "Four Pronged Test for Mission Alignment"
• 06.18.2018 - Issue #236 "Standard Change - Budget Expense Requests"
• 11.10.2018 - Issue #250 "Major Change: Create a ProgCode 501(c)(3) entity"

[noahsbwilliams]

Technical issue: Longform amount doesn’t match numerical amount in proposal. Other than that, has my support!
Update: Issue resolved!