Brains Trust - Appropriations v Budget Approval - Thoughts

Hi Brains Trust,

Appropriations v Budget Approval

When I am in a General Meeting I see agenda Items as appropriations, quite large sums sometimes. Generally the largest fund transfers in the co-op.

I find when there are questions at a SGM or AGM they are often met with “this is just an appropriation”. “Committee meetings are where we do the planning and budgets”. This isn’t where we discuss how we are going to spend it.

Yet many times when you go to the committee meetings you are told the money has already been approved to be spent in a way already ordained at the appropriations stage.

I think its safe to say our members are stuck in a loop and some are taking advantage of members poor understanding of process compounded by the urgent deadline. We need space to consider how we spend the

So what is the process?

What can we agree on?

May I suggest
1. We work out proposal through the committees (Committee meetings can defer to other committees)
2. When satisfied with idea and budgeting you ask for appropriations
3. Return to committee with answer, proceed as planned or alter the project parameters to fit the appropriation or not proceed at all

Appropriations cannot be seen as automatic approval of a particular idea.
It does not preclude all the effort put in by those moving the appropriation
To be fair to all participants it is in the committee meetings we unpack and decide.

So please when people ask questions about an appropriation, no-one need know the outline because theoretically it has not been decided upon yet.

If you want to have a say in how it’s being spent then turn up to the meetings throughout the year when the items should be unpacked and budgets finally allocated.

Also we do not seem to have a lot of accountability over projects

We do over our villages, not over other areas especially OC spending

When was the last time members had an explanation on a previous meetings appropriation