Re: Authorizing minor expenses by DSA without prior DPL approval

[Lucas Nussbaum <leader@debian.org>]

On 12/09/13 at 18:38 +0200, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> On Wed, August 28, 2013 18:12, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> > ]] Lucas Nussbaum
> >
> >> I like this idea of "max outstanding of $300" instead of an explicit
> >> time limit. But I think that your proposal makes it possible for DSA to
> >> not get reimbursed if the DPL is grumpy and decides not to approve the
> >> expense. I would rather use "DPL acknowledgement" than "DPL approval".
> >
> > First, thanks for pushing this forward, much appreciated.
> >
> >> So, new proposal:
> >>   DSA is allowed to make expenses and get reimbursed by Trusted
> >>   Organizations for up to US$300 to support the operation of Debian
> >>   infrastructure (pay shipping costs, purchase of cheap hardware such as
> >>   cables, replacement disk, etc.).
> >
> > Given we're not buying the cheapest disks we can find (since they have
> > worse warranties, etc), replacement disks quite often ends up at
> > approximately the $300 mark, maybe make the limit $400 or $500?
> 
> Similar mandates exist in many other organisations, and are often even
> template by-law text. The one's I've encountered are very much the same.
> They boil down to a mandate for expenses of 500 euro (this amount seems to
> be quite constant between different organisations aswell) per incident /
> purchase / work order, for which no pre-approval is required. The mandate
> does not remove accountability of course, so if someone bought candy with
> it or doesn't have a receipt, they're still liable. I don't think anything
> that Debian does needs to be more complicated than this. After all, the
> people in those roles are already trusted by the project to do way more
> important things.

I realize now that your mail was not answered, despite raising a very
valid point.

I agree that we are probably over-designing this process a bit, and that
many other organizations have simpler processes. However, Debian's
revenues come mainly from donations, and I think that this increases our
requirement to act in a very responsible, justifiable and public manner
with our funds.
 
Lucas