[members-discuss] GM topic

Hello Simon,
regarding category charging scheme. Last year it was rejected, as well as proposals to increase in LIR fees were also rejected, yet increase for LIR fees is again here for voting this year, but improved category model is not anymore, even thou quite a big amount of 36% of voters preferred category model.
According to the calculations RIPE provided, using category scheme 68% of the members would have paid up to 6x times less compared to what they are paying now (1550 Eur yearly) and much less with the currently proposed scheme for 2025. Also, this charging scheme would have helped to achieve projected budgets easily.
I think RIPE did poor job to inform majority of the members about the benefits of the new charging scheme and how much exactly they would pay next year with this scheme. Even the calculator was quite complicated to use for some members and I saw member's discuss responses how they are not able to calculate the fee correctly. I think majority of these 68% are not in this members discussion either to have better understanding what's going on behind the scenes.
New members could have been informed about these important votes with pop-ups on their LIR pages, SMS, calls, post and even same emails with detailed information how each charging scheme would impact their payments in the future. None of this was done and the result is obvious, less than 6% of businesses that would have benefited from this charging scheme voted for it. Did you guys ask, why such low amount of people voted? Did they even know about GM and charging schemes proposed for voting and how to do it? Probably no, because I don't have any explanation why 13,710 members wouldn't vote to reduce their costs significantly.
Only 805 ( I think 35% of all voters) voted for category option when there were 13,710 who would have benefited from this charging scheme significantly including having stability for RIPE budget for upcoming years. Also category 4 seems to be not that much of increase compared to current RIPE proposals so the benefiters % would go even higher this year.
My question shouldn't RIPE make these important votes bigger priority and put more effort to attract more voters instead of letting 5% of the members decide what's the best option? Last year less than 10% of total members voted, where is the voice from the other 90% and why the decisions important like these are made with such a small amount of votes? Shouldn't these important votes have minimum 40-50% of the members votes and have different model than voting only during GM and very limited time?


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    On Friday, April 26, 2024 at 10:59:00 AM GMT+3, Simon-Jan Haytink <simonjh at ripe.net> wrote:  
 
  
Hello all,
 
I just want to make some corrections on the facts that can help with the discussion. 
 
On the budget numbers, a 20% revenue or cost budget increase is simply incorrect.When I talk about revenue budget, I specifically mean the revenue the Charging Scheme is projected to generate. This is the discussion we are having now, and will be decided at the upcoming GM.
 
When I talk about cost budget, I specifically mean the Activity Plan & Budget. As part of our governance, this discussion will start after the summer. 
 
Option A from the three proposals does indeed propose a 22.58% LIR fee increase. This is correct.
 
All three options project a budget revenue of 41.1 Million EUR, which is an 8% increase from the 2024 revenue budget of 38M EUR, and a 3% increase compared to 2023 (40M EUR). 
 
This projection is based on a reducing number of LIR accounts:- 2023 Budget number of LIR Accounts 22,500- 2024 Budget number of LIR Accounts 21,500- 2025 projected Budget number of LIR Accounts 20,000 - equal to the number of individual members
 
The reason for this decline is the expected continued consolidation of multiple LIR accounts.Additionally, we see a stable development of individual members, at around 20,000 for the past four years, and we use this as the basis to ensure some stability in our revenue budget.
 
We use the Activity Plan & Budget 2024 to estimate the cost budget for 2025, including a general increase for inflation and salary increases. This is under the assumption the RIPE NCC will execute our responsibilities without any change in activities. Our projected revenue budget does not define our cost budget for 2025 - the Activity Plan and Budget process does. If the situation arises that we have collected more funds than needed our governance requires a redistribution vote at the autumn GM.Please note that with the assumption that the LIR account projection of 20,000 for 2025 is correct, not increasing the LIR fee would result in a projected revenue budget of 34 Million EUR.This would mean a reduction of 11% (34M) compared to revenue budget 2024 (38M), and a 15% reduction compared to 2023 (40M).
 
Lastly, I want to make it very clear that we, as the RIPE NCC, are not opposed to differentiation between members. We did propose the category model last year based on extensive consultation and discussion with the members, which could have been the start of this differentiation. This model was rejected, and we have to respect that. Any proposal will need consensus, as well as input from a diverse group of members, to ensure we reach a Charging Scheme that serves the needs (as far as possible) of all our members.
 Please use my words here as input for the discussion. I have purposely not given an opinion, as the discussion should be among members. 
Kind regards,
 Simon Jan HaytinkRIPE NCC CFO 

 On 25/04/2024 09:18, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
  
On 24/04/2024 18:28, Max Tulyev wrote: 
 
 I have added my support as I suggest everyone else do. 
 
 Everyone should realize that the major issue here is whether the annual fees will increase somewhere between 16-23%.  Max has suggested a 0% increase. 
 
 Look at the 2023 financial report: 
 https://www.ripe.net/documents/3756/ripe-821.pdf 
 
 No need to read all 39 pages - just page 6.  Quote: 
 
 "In 2023, we focused on reducing costs to ensure we can cope with the reduction in income due to the decrease of LIR accounts over the past few years. As a result, total expenditure was 37.3M EUR, 2.7 kEUR (7%) below the budget of 40M EUR. This puts us in a good position to operate within the 2024 budget of 38.2M EUR and to cope with inflation." 
 
 A target budget of 37-38M Euro is easily doable and we should not agree to a 20% increase in fees in order to support a 20% increase in total budget. 
 
 Regards, 
 Hank 
 
 
I have created the request for GM Agenda proposal "Keep current billing scheme for the next year". 
 
 Now it depends on your support. If there will be 400 supports, it should be included to GM. 
 
 Here it is the link: https://www.ripe.net/participate/meetings/gm/member-proposals/1/ 
 
 You just need to click on the "Support" button. 
 
 
 
 
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