proj-branchDemocracy-bylaws-old already reread-budget

The budget is decided in the following way.

The Chair, or, in Large groups, the Office of Procedure, impartially estimates the organization's income for the coming budget cycle, with Mandated Spending (see below) subtracted. This estimate cannot include any additional borrowing.

The representative bodies of the legislature (i.e. the Chair in Small groups, the Board in Medium groups, the Combined Board in Large groups) create budget line items via the usual legislative process. The legislature may also create minimum and maximum absolute funding levels for each line item. The meaning of a minimum level is NOT that the item will necessarily be funded at at least that level; it is only that, if the budget does not have at least that level for that item, it won't contain that item at all. In other words, minimums are for setting a minimum amount of funding for a project below which a project is not worth doing at all.

The line items always include:

To each member is assigned a "portion" of the organization's estimated income, calculated by their voting weight times the organization's total estimated income.

Then, each budgetary period, each member submits a list of budget caps for line items, and a prioritized list of how they would like to spend portions of "their" portion of the money. They can only place money towards the line items given by the legislature.

Next, the Green-armytage collaborative budgeting procedure is followed, with the addition of respecting any maximum caps set by the legislature, to determine a draft budget.

Items which are, in the draft budget, funded below the minimum levels set by the legislature are eliminated from consideration for this budget cycle. Then the Green-armytage collaborative budgeting procedure is rerun to get the final proportional budget.

During the budget cycle, if actual income falls short of estimated income, the remainder may, at the discretion of the CEO, be borrowed.

In subsequent budget cycles, the minimums and maximums set by the legislature are adjusted for inflation (inflation as estimated by the Office of Procedure), but otherwise the line items, minimums, and maximums persist until changed by further legislation.

By a measure with a voting threshold of 2/3s, the legislature can borrow money.

By a measure with a voting threshold of 2/3s, the legislature can spend money, either from the just-in-case fund or borrowed, in the middle of the budget cycle.

Mandated Spending

By a measure with a voting threshold of 2/3s, the legislature can mandate the spending of a minimal amount per budget cycle on some line item. The threshold to mandate a line item solely to pay off debt is a simple majority threshold.

These mandates persists for 4 electoral cycles, except for a line item to pay off debt, which persists indefinitely. These mandates can be repealed like an ordinary measure.

Paying interest on debt is always Mandated.