> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://committees.docs.intersectmbo.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://committees.docs.intersectmbo.org/intersect-budget-committee/committee-meeting-notes/2026-meeting-notes/budget-committee-weekly-meetings/april-20-2026-budget-comm-minutes.md). # April 20, 2026 Budget Comm Minutes ### Budget Committee Weekly Meeting — April 20th, 2026 **Date:** April 20, 2026 **Time:** 08:59 EDT **Attendees:** Abbie Yeates (Delivery Assurance), Ahmed Kadiri, Dynamic Strategies (Dimitri), Eric Helms (SCATDAO), Gnobudy John (visitor), Kriss Baird, Kristijan (Chris) Kowalsky, Lloyd Duhon (Secretary), Megan Hess (Chair), Nicolas Cerny, Seun Gbiri (visitor / observer), Simo Simovic (Project Manager), Stephen Wood (Cardano Foundation — non-voting contributor) **Quorum:** Confirmed. > **Context:** Budget season opened officially **Thursday, April 16** when the Ecclesia application went live. The Intersect Steering Committee meets immediately after this call and will see the **first preview of the Intersect main core budget** today. *** ### 1. Opening Lloyd opened the meeting and confirmed quorum. He congratulated the team on the application going live the prior Thursday — the kickoff milestone the committee has been working toward for months. The meeting opened with \~5–10 minutes of silent document review so all members were on the same baseline. Megan flagged a heads-up that some of her edits in Work Package 2 had been made outside suggestion mode; she went back and re-marked where possible. *** ### 2. Outstanding — Budget Numbers Still Missing **Nico** opened by asking whether the rough budget breakdown discussed previously had been added. * **Simo:** Has not yet been able to add numbers — he was focused on getting the application published last week. Will deliver rough numbers by **Wednesday's working session**. * **Lloyd:** Reaffirmed that Wednesday is the target; the committee can finalize once numbers are in. This remains the largest open item. *** ### 3. RACI / Responsibility Discussion — Who Actually Delivers the Work? A core, recurring discussion: who is responsible for delivering each work package and milestone? The committee aligned that this needs to be explicit in the proposal — and in some cases needs to be reframed entirely. #### 3.1 Nico's Framing Volunteers cannot run the budget process. The committee provides oversight, guidance, and feedback. Execution requires Intersect professional staff (Simo, Lorenzo, Lloyd in his secretary capacity, etc.) — they have the privileges, requirements, and time. The committee should outline clearly who delivers what. #### 3.2 Dimitri's Three-Part Framing Dimitri proposed a three-tier breakdown the committee found useful: 1. **Guaranteed baseline** — the Budget Committee exists, mandated by Intersect, with members on a 500 ADA stipend attending meetings, voting, drafting documents. This continues regardless of whether the proposal is funded. 2. **Light additional committee work** — extra deliverables done by members themselves if a small amount of budget is available (e.g., the first lines of a work package). 3. **Larger work steered by the committee** — substantive work delivered by external providers via RFQs, with the committee acting as **coordinator** (writing requirements, requesting quotes, adjudicating bids, validating delivery). This is where the larger budget figures sit. #### 3.3 Simo's Note from the Executive Team Per direction Simo received from the executive team / board: * Committees asking **over 1M ADA** are expected to include funding for someone to execute the additional work, since existing staff cannot absorb it. * Committees asking **under 1M ADA** can typically be supported by existing staff resources. * The Budget Committee is well under that threshold, so existing staff should be able to deliver the work. #### 3.4 Kristijan's Concern — Are We Building "a Machine for Nobody"? Kristijan emphasized impact: critics will scrutinize this proposal heavily, and the committee should be confident the work has clear ecosystem value. He warned against building infrastructure no one uses. **Lloyd's response:** Both work packages have demonstrable users — vendors are signing up to use the application, and DReps benefit from consolidated proposals. The Treasury Transparency Initiative addresses a real community pain point (easier-to-read tools, easier access to treasury information). #### 3.5 RACI Resolution Lloyd summarized: the committee is **responsible** (elected by members, holds oversight), staff is **accountable** (executes the work). Senior leadership and the board sit above the committee in the responsibility stack. The committee's proposal should reflect: "We commit to taking on this much responsibility, and the money in our proposal funds the resources (staff or external) needed to deliver." *** ### 4. Decision — Remove Milestone 8 from Work Package 1 **Kriss Baird** flagged that **Milestone 8 ("launch the 2027 budget process")** should not be part of this proposal: * Launching the next process is its own program / next cycle in itself. * Including it here either underbudgets a major program or muddies the proposal scope. * **Recommendation:** Remove it. **Decision:** No objections. Kriss removed Milestone 8 from Work Package 1 during the call. *** ### 5. Strategic Question — Should the Budget Process Be in This Proposal at All? **Nico** raised a deeper structural question: last year, the budget process itself was a key pillar of the **Intersect main proposal**. This year it has been pushed into the Budget Committee proposal — which doesn't fully make sense given that volunteers don't execute the process. **Simo** agreed the gap needs ISC-level resolution: if the Budget Committee proposal doesn't pass, will the budget process still happen? That decision sits above the committee. #### Direction Reached The committee aligned that its proposal should stop at the **handoff point**: * **In scope for the committee:** retros, gap analysis, fresh DRep consultation, recommendations packaged for staff. * **Out of scope (handed to staff):** execution of the 2027 budget process itself. This needs to be confirmed via an ISC conversation. Lloyd noted last year's early guidance had been to put budget-process work in the Budget Committee and product-process work in the Product Committee, with a planned reconciliation round — the committee is now in that reconciliation. *** ### 6. Budget Numbers — Working Estimates Surfaced in Discussion Although Simo will produce the official numbers by Wednesday, the discussion surfaced the working estimates from prior documents: | Item | Prior estimate | Notes | | ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | Recommended cap | \~1M ADA (\~$250K USD at current ADA price) | Per executive team guidance | | **Work Package 1** (Tooling — Ecclesia updates) | \~$100K USD | Based on actual tooling vendor quotes | | **Work Package 2** (Treasury Transparency Initiative) | \~$30K USD | Prototype/research scope | | **Total working estimate** | \~$130–150K USD (\~500K ADA) | Well under the cap | **Dimitri** pushed for next meeting to add explicit splits showing **how much of each work package is committee-led vs. external-vendor-led**, especially for the Ecclesia platform development which clearly cannot be done within the committee. *** ### 7. Avoid Double-Counting With Intersect Core Budget Several members converged on the same principle. **Stephen Wood** stated it cleanly: do not double-count. If staff costs are already covered in another budget (Intersect core), do not include them here as if they were incremental. This proposal should reflect **incremental costs only** — external resources, IT/tooling, additional spend on top of what core covers. **Stephen** also recommended keeping a **simple Google Sheet with the workings** behind every number — even a basic justification document goes a long way for credibility. **Lloyd:** Confirmed the secretary and project manager roles are paid out of Intersect core, so they should not appear as line items here. The committee has been progressively stripping BAU/core items from the proposal as Intersect's main proposal takes shape; this continues until the Intersect core budget is finalized and visible. *** ### 8. Operational Mechanics — Megan's Question on Granular Allocation **Megan** asked: once the budget is approved, who controls the granular spending decisions (e.g., "we need money for workshops")? **Lloyd's explanation (with Abbie present from Delivery Assurance):** * Final allocation goes through **Intersect Delivery Assurance** (Abbie's team) — they ensure money goes where it's supposed to, when it's supposed to. * For events: coordination with Intersect's ecosystem/events team for venue, scheduling, social coverage. The committee budget partially offsets these costs. * The committee plans (e.g., Workshop Planning is Milestone 1); milestone completion releases funds to Intersect; Intersect AP pays vendors. The committee does not touch funds directly. * **Unspent funds return to treasury.** Simo confirmed: if not all funds are used, the remainder is publicly returned to the treasury — this will be done by Intersect on the committee's behalf and announced. *** ### 9. Work Package 2 — Confirmations and Refinements #### 9.1 Confirmed Approach: No New Dashboard **Simo** sought confirmation: the committee has agreed **not to build a new dashboard** for Work Package 2. Instead, the committee will assess existing tools and recommend improvements. **Confirmed.** Lloyd noted the committee should target the **three most popular / most-used** ecosystem treasury tools for review (the number "three" was already in Megan's draft and is a reasonable scope). #### 9.2 RFQ / Bid Process Should Be Visible in Milestones **Megan** asked whether the proposal should make the RFQ/bid administrative process more explicit — proposers will have to bid for some of this work. **Lloyd:** Add it as milestones (or sub-points within milestones) where appropriate. For example, a "Tooling PRD" milestone could explicitly note that bid-out happens after the requirements are defined. Treasury landscape assessment / gap analysis can be done internally first (committee + Simo + Lloyd, with AI assistance for the data gathering); once that is in hand, vendor work can be bid out. *** ### 10. ISC Briefing — Questions to Carry Forward The Intersect Steering Committee call begins immediately after this meeting and will preview the **first draft of the Intersect main core budget**. Nico, Kriss, and Megan are attending. **Kriss's proxy question to carry into the ISC:** > What is the **expectation of who will deliver this work**? What level of **powers does the committee have to contract others** to do it? Is the work intended to be delivered by the committee members, by staff, or by some other model the ISC has in mind? Lloyd committed to posting a quick **summary of what we learn** to the committee's Discord channel after the ISC meeting. *** ### 11. Homework Before Wednesday's Working Session * **Simo:** Produce rough budget breakdown numbers (per work package, per milestone) — non-negotiable for Wednesday. * **All members:** Continue refining language; particularly the responsibility/handoff framing in each work package. * **Megan:** Add explicit RFQ/bid-process touch points into the milestones where vendor work is intended. * **Lloyd:** Post Discord summary after ISC call once Intersect main budget preview is seen. *** ### 12. Action Items | Action | Owner | Notes | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Deliver rough budget breakdown by work package and milestone | Simo | Due Wednesday — this has been outstanding | | Remove Milestone 8 ("launch 2027 budget process") from Work Package 1 | Kriss Baird | Done in-call | | Reframe budget-process scope in proposal: committee delivers retros + gap analysis + recommendations; staff delivers execution | Lloyd / committee | Confirms Nico's framing; needs ISC alignment | | Carry to ISC: who is expected to deliver the work, and what contracting powers does the committee have? | Nico / Kriss / Megan | At today's ISC call | | Post Discord summary after ISC main-budget preview | Lloyd | Today, after ISC | | Strip any remaining BAU / core-budget overlap (secretary, PM, etc.) — incremental cost only | Lloyd / Simo | Per Stephen's double-counting caution | | Maintain a simple Google Sheet with justifications behind each number | Lloyd / Simo | Per Stephen's recommendation | | Add explicit splits per work package: committee-led vs. external vendor-led portion | Lloyd / Simo / committee | For Wednesday | | Add RFQ / bid-process touch points as milestones (or milestone sub-items) where vendor work is intended | Megan / Lloyd | Particularly for Tooling PRD | | Confirm WP2 dashboard approach: assess top 3 most-used existing ecosystem tools; do not build new | Megan / committee | Already aligned; document the rationale clearly | | Coordinate workshop costs against Product Committee's prior-year benchmarks | Simo | Reference numbers exist | | Plan for unspent funds to be publicly returned to treasury | Simo / Abbie / Lloyd | Standard practice; should be referenced in the document | *** ### 13. Adjournment Lloyd thanked the committee for a productive working session, recognized Simo's commitment to deliver numbers by Wednesday, and adjourned to allow ISC attendees to prepare for the main-budget preview meeting four minutes later. **Headline outcomes:** * **Budget numbers still outstanding** — Simo committed to deliver rough breakdown by Wednesday. * **Milestone 8 removed** from Work Package 1 (launching the 2027 budget process is its own program, not part of this proposal). * **Scope reframed:** committee delivers retros + gap analysis + recommendations; **execution of the next budget process is staff's responsibility** — needs ISC confirmation today. * **Working estimates confirmed:** \~$100K (WP1 tooling) + \~$30K (WP2 transparency) = \~$130–150K USD (\~500K ADA), well under the 1M ADA suggested cap. * **No double-counting** with Intersect core budget — secretary/PM costs and other BAU items stay out. * **Stephen's recommendation:** maintain a Google Sheet showing the workings behind each number for credibility. * **WP2 dashboard approach confirmed:** assess top 3 existing ecosystem tools; do not build new. * **Key ISC question** carried by Nico/Kriss/Megan: who is expected to deliver the work and what contracting powers does the committee have? 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