Whereas, the costs of war are frequently felt most heavily by women and children, and
Whereas, any action or contribution no matter how small is warranted to prevent further suffering or reduce current suffering, and
Whereas, Talossans are known for their care and concern for conflict-burdened peoples around the world.
Therefore, the Ziu authorises the Bureau of Humanitarian Aid and International Development to make a one-time contribution of $50 (USD), to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, at https://www.pcrf.net.
Uréu q'estadra så
Breneir Tzaracomprada (MC-Open Society)
I agree with the sentiment. Am doing research on the specific charity recommended.
Yes, this charity looks legit.
@Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB @Ian Plätschisch @Glüc da Dhi S.H. Hello Mr. Secretary and CRL members, would one of you be able to move my bill to the CRL thread? It has passed the 10-day Hopper review period.
I meant to ask, is this sum intended to be paid off the $50 appropriation for MinFor? Because in that case this bill would not be necessary, all you need to do is coordinate with MinFor to issue a notice of disbursement and in fourteen days's time, voila, the contribution is made.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on September 25, 2024, 06:20:42 AMI meant to ask, is this sum intended to be paid off the $50 appropriation for MinFor? Because in that case this bill would not be necessary, all you need to do is coordinate with MinFor to issue a notice of disbursement and in fourteen days's time, voila, the contribution is made.
No this would be a separate item. Thank you for checking.
@Sir Lüc as Deputy or
@Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB as SoS would either of you be willing to move this to the CRL?
Approved
Approved also
The current government submitted a budget allocating 50 dollars for expenditure by the Bureau of Humanitarian Aid and International Development. I would be interested to hear from the minister of finance how the government envisions this money be spent. Is it first come, first serve with the money going to whichever charity the Ziu passes a bill for first? Does the government itself have a project in mind? Does it support this particular bill and if it passes does that mean the government won't support any further BHAID donations this term? Basically, how do ad-hoc BHAID bills like this relate to the budget?
@Sir Lüc I have no recommendation on this bill.
Quote from: Glüc da Dhi S.H. on September 30, 2024, 03:48:19 PMThe current government submitted a budget allocating 50 dollars for expenditure by the Bureau of Humanitarian Aid and International Development. I would be interested to hear from the minister of finance how the government envisions this money be spent. Is it first come, first serve with the money going to whichever charity the Ziu passes a bill for first? Does the government itself have a project in mind? Does it support this particular bill and if it passes does that mean the government won't support any further BHAID donations this term? Basically, how do ad-hoc BHAID bills like this relate to the budget?
It's not my responsibility to decide how the various ministries spend their allocation, so I can't really speak on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Minister about this, except to unofficially say I think a donation to Pëngöpäts-related conservation funds was floated around Cabinet. The Cabinet does support the proposed donation. We feel the cause is very important and much more urgent, and the Seneschal herself mentioned in the Hopper thread the charity was up to snuff, so to speak, according to her vetting.
I did suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that it would have been much quicker, not to mention generally the correct approach if passing a Budget has any point, to spend the allocated money rather than pass a separate appropriations bill. The Leader of the Opposition declined, perhaps because he did not understand my suggestion or because there indeed was confusion about how the $50 were to be spent.
I concurrently pursued the matter in Cabinet, which agreed with me that we should rather coordinate to have the funds immediately disbursed rather than passing a separate bill. My suggestion to the Cabinet was also that if the Pëngöpäts donation was to be made, we could pay it off the miscellaneous fund, since we were unlikely to spend a full $50 on it. This coordination however did not happen, perhaps owing to the reduced timeframe between this discussion and the bill being Clarked.
I do not know whether the Seneschal and/or MinFor intend to support this bill or to make it moot by disbursing from the budgeted allocation, but at this point my advice to Cabinet, and I suppose my opinion in response to your questions, is that if this bill passes we will not seek to make further major disbursments from the Foreign Affairs allocation, but we may make a donation of smaller entity further down the line. If the bill instead becomes moot, such a smaller entity donation would come from the miscellaneous fund.
As for the last question, in practice if a bill such as this one is passed the Cabinet would of course not treat it as a supplemental allocation, but rather adjust downwards any further planned withdrawals from the Foreign pot. Of course, we'd rather a bill such as this one was not presented in the first place as the MinFor allocation - specifically budgeted for BHAID - was put there in the Budget for a reason. I definitely advocate clearing up BHAID's status in the ministerial structure (including discussing making it a Civil Service office if necessary), and better discussion around how the funds are allocated and spent.
I hope this answers your queries.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on September 30, 2024, 04:45:02 PMI did suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that it would have been much quicker, not to mention generally the correct approach if passing a Budget has any point, to spend the allocated money rather than pass a separate appropriations bill. The Leader of the Opposition declined, perhaps because he did not understand my suggestion or because there indeed was confusion about how the $50 were to be spent.
I declined because the intent of my BHAID bill was a separate allocation for the designated organization. The Government can choose whether it wants to make my bill moot because my proposed charitable recipient is a wiser selection. Further, there is no requirement for the BHAID to be limited to only one disbursement regardless of budgetary decisions.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on September 30, 2024, 04:45:02 PM(including discussing making it a Civil Service office if necessary)
I am glad someone is taking expansion of the Civil Service seriously. :)
Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 30, 2024, 04:59:50 PMQuote from: Sir Lüc on September 30, 2024, 04:45:02 PMI did suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that it would have been much quicker, not to mention generally the correct approach if passing a Budget has any point, to spend the allocated money rather than pass a separate appropriations bill. The Leader of the Opposition declined, perhaps because he did not understand my suggestion or because there indeed was confusion about how the $50 were to be spent.
I declined because the intent of my BHAID bill was a separate allocation for the designated organization. [...] Further, there is no requirement for the BHAID to be limited to only one disbursement regardless of budgetary decisions.
This genuinely makes me wonder what people think the line in the Budget that says "$50 for expenditure by BHAID" means. It's not a new problem either - last term, TWO separate appropriations totaling $100 were passed for humanitarian aid purposes, while the whole $50 BHAID pot in the Budget went unspent. This to me reveals a general misunderstanding of what the Budget is for, and an annoying selective mutism between legislators and successive ministers.
The second bit is absolutely true and I never claimed otherwise - but if the budget says we envision to spend $50 on foreign aid, that doesn't mean the government wants to spend $50 and anyone else can spend whatever it wants, because the Budget
QuoteThe Government can choose whether it wants to make my bill moot because my proposed charitable recipient is a wiser selection.
Again, there's some selective mutism going on here at the very least. Simply talking to each beforehand would have prevented all this muddlement.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on October 02, 2024, 04:57:45 AMQuote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 30, 2024, 04:59:50 PMQuote from: Sir Lüc on September 30, 2024, 04:45:02 PMI did suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that it would have been much quicker, not to mention generally the correct approach if passing a Budget has any point, to spend the allocated money rather than pass a separate appropriations bill. The Leader of the Opposition declined, perhaps because he did not understand my suggestion or because there indeed was confusion about how the $50 were to be spent.
I declined because the intent of my BHAID bill was a separate allocation for the designated organization. [...] Further, there is no requirement for the BHAID to be limited to only one disbursement regardless of budgetary decisions.
This genuinely makes me wonder what people think the line in the Budget that says "$50 for expenditure by BHAID" means. It's not a new problem either - last term, TWO separate appropriations totaling $100 were passed for humanitarian aid purposes, while the whole $50 BHAID pot in the Budget went unspent. This to me reveals a general misunderstanding of what the Budget is for, and an annoying selective mutism between legislators and successive ministers.
The second bit is absolutely true and I never claimed otherwise - but if the budget says we envision to spend $50 on foreign aid, that doesn't mean the government wants to spend $50 and anyone else can spend whatever it wants, because the Budget
QuoteThe Government can choose whether it wants to make my bill moot because my proposed charitable recipient is a wiser selection.
Again, there's some selective mutism going on here at the very least. Simply talking to each beforehand would have prevented all this muddlement.
I'm not going to attempt a diagnosis on Bentxami or other Cabinet members but selective mutism does not explain it for me. I declined because I intended it as a separate allocation with the hope and expectation that the Government would also make that Budget expenditure. Again, your budget line item does not prohibit other proposals no matter how much it offends your administrative sensibilities, Luc.
Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 02, 2024, 05:25:04 AMI'm not going to attempt a diagnosis on Bentxami or other Cabinet members but selective mutism does not explain it for me. I declined because I intended it as a separate allocation with the hope and expectation that the Government would also make that Budget expenditure. Again, your budget line item does not prohibit other proposals no matter how much it offends your administrative sensibilities, Luc.
But I never claimed this, and I'm not "pissed you spent our money", or whatever you think this is about.
What I'm saying is that the Government intended our aid budget to be $50, with no specific included proposal on where to spend it on - understandably I think, since the Budget needs to be ready very early on in the term. I repeatedly said your proposed donation is meritorious, had been vetted and okay-ed by the Seneschal, and I'll go beyond that to say that it's basically the best place we could spend the money given the current unfortunate geopolitical situation.
So the budget line item
was quite literally ready to be spent for your proposal, if only you cared to talk to us. The money could have left the Treasury one week ago, September 27th, if a disbursment notice was issued by MinFor at the time you presented your bill; and instead it won't be able to be issued until November 14th at the earliest.
Quote from: Sir Lüc on October 03, 2024, 11:31:16 AMQuote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 02, 2024, 05:25:04 AMI'm not going to attempt a diagnosis on Bentxami or other Cabinet members but selective mutism does not explain it for me. I declined because I intended it as a separate allocation with the hope and expectation that the Government would also make that Budget expenditure. Again, your budget line item does not prohibit other proposals no matter how much it offends your administrative sensibilities, Luc.
But I never claimed this, and I'm not "pissed you spent our money", or whatever you think this is about.
What I'm saying is that the Government intended our aid budget to be $50, with no specific included proposal on where to spend it on - understandably I think, since the Budget needs to be ready very early on in the term. I repeatedly said your proposed donation is meritorious, had been vetted and okay-ed by the Seneschal, and I'll go beyond that to say that it's basically the best place we could spend the money given the current unfortunate geopolitical situation.
So the budget line item was quite literally ready to be spent for your proposal, if only you cared to talk to us. The money could have left the Treasury one week ago, September 27th, if a disbursment notice was issued by MinFor at the time you presented your bill; and instead it won't be able to be issued until November 14th at the earliest.
Again, Luc, I will repeat this because it does not appear to be breaking through. As I have now mentioned three times my intent of proposing the bill was for
it to be a separate expenditure not for it to fall within what you allocated in the budget. You are complaining because I did not do it the way you believe is preferable. That is what I think this is about. And I am repeatedly explaining that my intent, in the first place, was never to do it that way. This was intended as extra BHAID activity, to be supported or not, by the Government.
Add the Government's $50 budget allocation to my proposal and make it $100?
Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 03, 2024, 01:08:37 PMAgain, Luc, I will repeat this because it does not appear to be breaking through. As I have now mentioned three times my intent of proposing the bill was for it to be a separate expenditure not for it to fall within what you allocated in the budget.
Why did you not want to spend the money we allocated for BHAID?
QuoteYou are complaining because I did not do it the way you believe is preferable. That is what I think this is about. And I am repeatedly explaining that my intent, in the first place, was never to do it that way. This was intended as extra BHAID activity, to be supported or not, by the Government.
Two things:
1) we evidently disagree on what BHAID is, since by law it is supposed to be a part of the Government, so the concept of "extra BHAID activity, to be supported or not, by the Government" does not make sense under current practice;
2) the Government allocated money for you, BHAID, to use, as specifically mentioned in the budget bill, and you chose not to use it, for whatever reasons. Why?
QuoteAdd the Government's $50 budget allocation to my proposal and make it $100?
Well no, as I explained already, the $50 were $50 because we wanted Talossa to spend that much in aid spending.
I'm not sure where the threads are coming loose in this discussion but it may be differing views on what the BHAID is, yes. So I can see how when I say "extra BHAID activity," that may be confusing. My intent from the beginning, however, has been for this to be an expenditure outside of the announced budget which has occurred several times in the past. So there should be no surprise that I did not approach the Government on this because I did not intend it to use the $50 budget allocation.
Is this conversation even necessary in this particular thread? The bill is already before the Ziu. Maybe you guys should take it out of the CRL to discuss further.