Budget (!)

[Brendan]

Hello Everyone

I've attached the first draft of the budget for the year.

A few notes:

* This is in xlsx format for MS Excel. If anyone can't read this then please let me know and I'll see what I can do to copy it to another format. I'm happy to do this I just wanted to get this out to you as soon as possible. I'm not very keen on shared copies with little version control. I'll be happy to update this after a round of feedback and post new copies as necessary.

* You will notice that this includes both a cash basis and a non-cash (GST exclusive) basis to make some of the tax calculations etc easier. The figures to the left that I've based our starting point on are from our end of year reports (in Xero) rather than the cash report from the afterburn. These might look lower than you're used to if you generally think in cash terms.

* I've only detailed one scenario but it's easy to play with the ticket price to see how it works out. Feel free to download a copy and change the number of tickets sold to 1500 to see what happens but I'd caution against any more significant changes to ticket numbers as that would affect our assumptions for several of our other costs. Reducing the ticket numbers will still give you a good indication of the corresponding drop in revenue.

* I've also changed the order that things are listed in to make for slightly easier reading from an accounting perspective.

I think that this strikes a good balance for a starting point. As Karl has suggested in the wish-list discussion, we can actually fit most of the wish-list in (depending on a few assumptions). A ticket price of $150 would be easy to justify based on the increases that we've allowed for. Significant changes to the cost of land, site improvements, or tree work (for example) could change this quite easily though. I think that a ticket price of $155 would also be perfectly reasonable based on costs.

PLEASE:

1) If you see something that essential for making the festival work that hasn't been properly funded - SPEAK UP

2) Check the "assumptions" tab. This shows the wish list-items that didn't make the cut in this version. This is just a suggestion for the starting point - if you think that these things should have taken priority then SUGGEST CHANGES to make them work (what would you remove from the budget / increase ticket price etc).

3) TAKE NOTICE of the items marked with red flags. These are significant costs with significant assumptions behind them. If these change then we may need to make dramatic adjustments.

4) DISCUSS. Any suggestions / comments welcome.

If nobody has any objection then I'll cross-post this to the Team Leads group for feedback at the end of next week.

I suggest giving enough time for those off at BM to return before "finalising" anything.

Also, I consider the budget for the year to be a living-document - ie we should be open to changes as we get new information throughout the year. We can agree on a plan and work to the budget but if we need to make changes at any time we should be open to discussing them.

Thanks for your patience with me on this.

-Brendan

[Brendan]

PS: Sorry how it displays when you click "view" from Google Groups. Next version I'll try to pay more attention to page formatting and / or put together a Google Sheets copy.

[Pete Wyatt]

it looks pretty good.... just some questions...

can you increase greeters to more inline with the other depts, perhaps $1000, their expenses were minimal this year because Marla had no way of paying for anything before the event so they had a pretty sad greeters setup and it was a bit depressing for those concerned

the community art project is an art project that participants can be involved in during the event, it is a great idea and I think we should keep it funded as it's a small amount but can produce good results, a few years back we had a big body painting effort (with learning / teaching in the painting, dancing and drumming sectors) that came together with dancers and drummers creating a performance, and it is one of the possibilities this can fund, that was great bang for the buck

We need to consider a small increase in the price of ice as we lost money on ice sales

the rest of the figures look good to me....

why is the toilet cost increasing of we are looking at the population remaining the same ?

we could do with a better way to manage allocating our assets like a generator to depot so we don't have to hire one for them.

do we actually have a detailed list of assets ? and do we update the list when gear gets broken & lost ?

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:20 PM, Brendan <introvert...@gmail.com> wrote:

PS: Sorry how it displays when you click "view" from Google Groups. Next version I'll try to pay more attention to page formatting and / or put together a Google Sheets copy.

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[Brendan]

Thanks Lumos, exactly the sort of feedback that we need...

I've bumped Greeters up to $900 + GST = 1,035.

Thanks for the explanation of the Community Art Project. The wasn't funded last year. When you say it was a 'small amount' - how much are we talking? $500? For now I've put it in at $500 + GST = $575, which is the same as the innovation grant.

 

We need to consider a small increase in the price of ice as we lost money on ice sales

Yes, we do. I'm leaving this as it is in the budget though on the principal of over-stating expenses and under-stating income. I've added a note to the assumptions page and I recommend a price of $5/bag to keep it simple.

 

why is the toilet cost increasing of we are looking at the population remaining the same ?

This assumes that we sell 1600 tickets, which is a population increase of 115 participants. Even selling 1500 tickets is a slight increase on 2016. The toilet cost is simply proportional (same cost per participant) as a very rough estimate). It will probably be different to that but hopefully not by too much.

 

we could do with a better way to manage allocating our assets like a generator to depot so we don't have to hire one for them.

do we actually have a detailed list of assets ? and do we update the list when gear gets broken & lost ?

Not really. We keep assets on our books in Xero but this currently only includes the biggest items (containers, generators, dome). It's kept as a bare minimum for what we need as compliant bookkeeping, to work out depreciation etc. I agree that we need a better system.

In the thread about the computer Wendy said "FYI I am learning about infrastructure asset management at the moment as part of my work contract." - this could be a great opportunity for project work (eventually).

After these changes the cash surplus is down to $3,915. Bumping the ticket price up to $155 would bring the cash surplus up to $10,872 - which I think it much healthier (considering that this includes any Ops contingency). Otherwise we could cut spending elsewhere? For now I'm suggesting a ticket price of $155.

[Pete Wyatt]

I agree that $155 is reasonable and still a cheap event and allows us to fund the extras that include land access, and most of the new structures we need to build,

community art grant is set at $800

[Brendan]

Thanks for the explanation of the Community Art Project. [This] wasn't funded last year.

Excuse me, my mistake. I see that it was funded last year, it just wasn't split out on the books. For some reason it was listed separately but things like the 'large art grant' etc weren't.

I don't see why it should be an additional line on the budget at all. It's covered in the total art grants allocation.

I'll note that "Art Grants Disbursement" includes the Community Art Project and bump the total up to $8,000 inc GST instead.

 

[Pete Wyatt]

the KAC have also taken over control of the innovation grants so that money can be included in that total as well

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[Karl Matthews]

Just a couple of points to throw into the mix, aside from other points made in a separate discussion.

- I like that the temple and effigy are looking at increases but I really don't like the idea of decreasing the general Art grant pool. Seems like a step backward.

Just because we haven't had the best time filling them out in the past doesn't mean it is going to continue on like that in the future. We have to have that money available and if anything the KAC have to regulate who gets it better. If the quality is still not there just don't allocate it all.

I would rather an extra $5 went onto tickets so we could bring it to $10,000 with Effigy/Temple getting $7500 each.

- Are we doing away with the crew appreciation budget, Or am I just missing it in there?

I think we came up with a great way to use that this year and would love to see it continue or even increase. This year we had $750 and we would just have crew drinks every few days after dinner. We would only bring out enough for 1 or 2 each but it was very popular after hot days, and was great for team building. At the end we gave the build managers discretion to spend the excess on something crew specific for their teams.

I would actually like to see this increased to $1000.

[Brendan]

Thanks Karl

Appreciate the feedback.

- I like that the temple and effigy are looking at increases but I really don't like the idea of decreasing the general Art grant pool. Seems like a step backward.

Just because we haven't had the best time filling them out in the past doesn't mean it is going to continue on like that in the future. We have to have that money available and if anything the KAC have to regulate who gets it better. If the quality is still not there just don't allocate it all.

I would rather an extra $5 went onto tickets so we could bring it to $10,000 with Effigy/Temple getting $7500 each.

Feedback from KAC was that they were in support of the change. I will, however, update this to $10,000 and see how we get on.

 

- Are we doing away with the crew appreciation budget, Or am I just missing it in there?

I think we came up with a great way to use that this year and would love to see it continue or even increase. This year we had $750 and we would just have crew drinks every few days after dinner. We would only bring out enough for 1 or 2 each but it was very popular after hot days, and was great for team building. At the end we gave the build managers discretion to spend the excess on something crew specific for their teams.

I would actually like to see this increased to $1000.

I'm working from the previous years books so this may have been coded as "entertainment" (or may have been included in the spending for the departments - as it was at build managers discretion). I'm not sure. I've added in a $1,000 line in any case. Laura has mentioned a tool in Xero that can help track this sort of thing and having a dedicated finance team person on site might help to reduce this sort of confusion in the future.

Also - Karl mentioned that the Community Art Project last year was the Pizza Oven but they didn't provide any receipts. As such I presume that they spent the money themselves and weren't reimbursed. I'm not concerned about re-visiting this but it might help demystify the conversation above. If that's the case then they weren't included in the current budget. I've put total Art Grant Disbursement up to $10k including GST. Hopefully this will be enough to cover the CAP and Innovation Grants as well.

I've increased the ticket price to $155 already and shaved a little off the capitol items (mostly by the amount of the GST). There are some really significant expenses that I would like to include (I'll put together a proposal for one on a separate thread shortly) and we still have those red flags that could balloon suddenly. While the current version shows a healthy cash surplus I feel like that's a little misleading and doesn't give us room for comfort.

I'll post an updated spreadsheet soon. In the meantime I'd like everyone's thoughts please on:

1) What's the HIGHEST TICKET PRICE that you would be comfortable with (given everything that we have going on)?

2) Is there anything in the current budget that we could CUT / REDUCE for this year (for example, could any of the structures wait until next year? do we need $2k worth of scaffolding or could that be reduced and look to buy more next year as well?).

Thank you.

[Wendy]

Hi, just dropping in to say that I'm pretty happy with how all this is going, the KAC are mostly on board with the notion of their changed budget (one person not happy but still going along with it), and that I've already had a look at this previously.

One thing - our training budget is $2500-2900 and over half of that is likely to go on SiteSafe (this year we'll make it clear we want only one workshop per session so shouldn't get stung with the double-up bill we did last time).  I know that Shelley's put in for training for the media team that's over a thousand dollars, and I would also like to have facilitation training for the new Chair somewhere along the line.  It might not be possible this year but I think we'll have to consider increasing the training budget pretty soon.

Answering the direct questions:

1. For me, I think $180 would be the highest. I could afford more but I don't want to inflict that on the rest of the community.

2.  I've heard the need for scaff is just growing and growing.

3.  Wanted to give the headsup that the cleanup crew may have to buy topsoil next year.  Probably only 4-5 cube if we're going back to 2 burns.  I'll price it out and see what emerges, but it looks to be around $35 a cube plus delivery.  Budget atm has us at $808 which could well cover it, but might not.  Just an fyi

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[Brendan]

Updated budget attached:

Noteworthy changes (mostly as discussed above):

* Ticket price increased to $155

* Several departments budgets updated to match the same budget as last year (where they didn't spend the full amount last year)

* Art Grant Disbursement increased to $10k (to include CAP and Innovation grant)

* Crew Appreciation added in

* Media training added (note that this excludes any venue hire)

* Facilitation training added as a note for next year (but no extra budget allocation this year)

* Shaved a small amount off most capital items (mostly by the amount of GST as most people would thinking in cash terms when putting forward the requirements) to allow better cash surplus

* Head of Security Management added in

I don't know what happened with Head of Security Management last year. Can anyone confirm what was discussed with Paul. In principle I'm happy to compensate him, we just don't want him to be our only "employee". If he was GST registered as a sole trader then I suspect that we could pay him as a contractor. Otherwise if he could give us some receipts I'd be happy to process an expense claim for him instead. Either way I've added this back into the budget.

NB:

Don't forget that those "red flags" are still to be confirmed.

Additional costs for a full operations summit / meet-up have not yet been included (waiting for further discussion first - see separate thread).

Use of Land to be updated once we hear back from Rathmoy on our proposal.

Based on this budget changing ticket sales to 1500 would result in a cash deficit of nearly $3k (we can afford that but it's not ideal and doesn't leave any room for an operational contingency fund).

Sorry if I've forgotten to mention any changes above. Let me know if you would like this in Open Office format and I'll see what I can do (as I understand it Open Office should be able to open Excel documents anyway).

[Brendan]

Also - Clean up crew budget increased as contingency for burn scar remediation.

[Oliver Macro]

Would it be reasonable for me to request that the town planning budget is upped to $1k, and a second $1k budget assigned specifically to internal traffic management?

In the case of the traffic management in particular it'll be towards the materials for two 'bus shelter' like structures, hi-vis wear, and flashlights for night crews especially.

For the former I'd like some extra for contingency beyond the need for a notable order of survey flags and marking/measurement equipment.

On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 12:38 PM Brendan <introvert...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also - Clean up crew budget increased as contingency for burn scar remediation.

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[Brendan]

Sounds reasonable.

I've added a "Traffic Management" expense line of $500 and increased "On Site Structures" by $500 as well.

I've also changed "Town Planning Gear" to $500 and added an expense line "Town Planning" of $500.

I'm not sure how this will pan out in terms of expenses vs assets. Note that anything over a particular value that's kept for the next year counts as an asset.

[Oliver Macro]

Wonderful, thank you :)

[Brendan]

Thanks for answering those questions Wendy.

Can I please get everyone else's thoughts on the following:

1) What's the HIGHEST TICKET PRICE that you would be comfortable with (given everything that we have going on)? NB: Participants are likely to need to pay a booking fee of $5 or more in addition to the ticket price.

2) Is there anything in the current budget that we could CUT / REDUCE for this year?

If we would like to fund a get-together for the Ops / Admin teams (or any one of several other things) then we need more room in the budget.

I'm always open to feedback throughout the year but if I'd like at least a few other ExCom opinions on this before the end of the week as possible. Unless there are any objections I'll share the most recent version of the budget with the Team Leads group for feedback on the weekend.

Thanks

-Brendan

[Pete Wyatt]

$180 is still affordable and great value

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[Oliver Macro]

As I stated in a recent thread, I'm comfortable with tickets being up to $200 for the time being.

[ben curran]

$200 for me is getting up there. I'd prefer to keep it down around $160ish if at all possible. If it's not - $170?

[Brendan]

> As I stated in a recent thread...

Thanks Oliver (and everyone else who's answered so far). I'm just checking in that the opinions ventured in the earlier thread are still haven't changed now that we've seen some numbers.

Things were looking very tight with a ticket price of $155. Since nobody has suggested any way to cut costs (it's my preference not to skimp any further on anything that we've included so far) I think that we'll need to increase that price.

So far it looks like most people would be comfortable with up to $180 (acknowledging Ben's preference for the $160-$170 range).

While demand was strong last year I'm slightly concerned that increasing the price too far might undermine that. Given the booking fee I'd be more comfortable with up to $175 maximum.

For now I've changed the draft budget ticket price to $170. This gives us a little room to move higher if absolutely necessary and a much better buffer to cover:

* Site operations contingency fund

* Lower ticket sales (or deciding to cap at 1500)

* Those "red flags" that are still to be confirmed

* More crew training / hand-over meetings and a possible operations / admin "summit" or get-together of some kind

* Continuing to grow our cash reserves with a view to becoming more financially secure and maybe even being able to pre-fund the event

[Wendy]

I like $170.

My chair's report warns that tickets will probably go up and that we're changing the structure, but also says we've not settled on the price yet so hopefully there won't be too much questioning about that.

[Oliver Macro]

I can deal with around $170 for now quite comfortably. I don't think we'd be undermining our ability to sell tickets at this stage. There's still considerable demand and if we do fail to sell out again, I'd be very surprised indeed.

[Pete Wyatt]

I don't see NOT selling out as many 3 day festivals are priced at the same or more than KB

[Nicola]

Max for me would be $180.
For things we could cut, I think we could cut a decent chunk of the proposed costs of the kitchen upgrades if we get a suitable caterer (Poppy is following up a lead now). They'll still need a structure, but they won't need equipment.

[Brendan]

Yeah, Kitchen is "Red Flagged". Waiting on quotes for catering.

[Brendan]

And yes Nicola - that reply was just so that you get another Kiwiburn email during the AGM.

[Oliver Macro]

And here's another. Look at me Nicola, I'm unread!

[Nicola]

You can't stop me!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM

[Oliver Macro]

Ooooh I do love me some Queen. :D

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[Nicola]

There may be wine and Queen in my house right now.

Sorry, derailed thread. Go people - discuss the budget! Answer Brendan's questoins or no more flippancy from you!

[Oliver Macro]

Dont stop me now! I'm having such a good time with it! :p

[Pete Wyatt]

back to work slaves !! (I mean wonderful excom members)

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 9:30 PM, Oliver Macro <oliver...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dont stop me now! I'm having such a good time with it! :p

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[Brendan]

Drumroll please...

Attached is the proposed draft budget for the year based on the feedback provided so far.

I'd like to say that this is fairly firm (as firm as possible) with the exception of the items that are "red flagged".

While this is a living document and subject to change throughout the year, perhaps we can vote to accept this and then start acting on the budget lines (confirming budgets for Team Leads etc). Before we vote I'd like to give one week for final feedback, and to post this as a fairly firm proposal to the Team Leads Google Group for comment as well. I suggest voting starts on the week of Monday 29th (if Wendy approves and there are no strong objections).

Noteworthy changes since the previous version (please take a close look at the spreadsheet in case I missed anything):

* Ticket price updated to $170

* Media training removed as a separate line and included in Crew Training instead

* Added a $3,000 provision for Volunteer Reimbursement provision. This is still to be discussed so I thought that it was prudent to allow some form of provision just in case.

* Operations / Admin summit provision increased to $8,000 as this is much closer to the actual cost of the ExCom summit and the population of an Operations summit is likely to be larger.

* Fixed error in the cash surplus calculation that has increased the cash surplus expected by a few thousand dollars.

The cash surplus looks healthy but this includes an operational contingency fund and I'm sure that I don't need to repeat myself about everything that's still up in the air.

Nobody has objected to sharing this with the Team Leads group so far (and this thread is public anyway) so I'll cross-post it shortly.

Thanks everyone.

-Brendan

[Wendy]

I have marked in my calendar to start a vote on Mon 29.

Taking a day off so I'll get to this tomorrow.

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[Brendan]

The day after I posted this "as firm as possible" budget I remembered one other request that we haven't discussed yet. Sorry about the late addition.

At the end of March Hippie asked about a donation to the Auckland Burner Space / Giant Weta project. This wasn't the first time that the question of funding community projects outside of the main event has come up and I said that I'd flag it as a budget request for a more appropriate time. I think that this is worthy of discussion as the purpose of Kiwiburn Inc is also to promote the principles of Burning Man generally (in addition to running the festival).

It's not a conversation that we need to have right now but if we vote for a budget that doesn't mention it then it's likely to get dropped altogether until this time next year. As such I've added a "provision" of $3,000 to the budget to cover Community Projects. We can discuss this in more detail at a later time.

As clarification, when I add a "provision" to the budget (as per Volunteer Reimbursements above) it's not a commitment to spend the money, or to stick to that particular amount. This is simply an acknowledgement that we haven't discussed it yet and we may choose to spend money on it when we do so. As a prudent / conservative measure an allowance is made in the budget so that we're not caught short and don't necessarily need to discuss other sacrifices if we choose to go ahead (depending on the amount).

[Pete Wyatt]

I agree to have an allowance that we may later talk in detail about

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[Brendan]

Attached is the "final draft budget". The only change to the previous version is the provision for Community Projects mentioned above.

Thanks for voting on this everyone.

Nicola - you're welcome to add this copy to the admin team dropbox if appropriate.

[Hippie Tim]

Great job guys!

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