In this and other forums, there have been some attacks
on Mister Starr, personally, and professionally.
I'm not going to address the siliness of the personal
attacks, but the professional attacks are mainly from
Lee Wrights, an LNC Board Member, and all around
firebrand Libertarian.
Lee has it in his head that Aaron is keeping some kind
of secrets that Aaron is hiding something about the
budget, I'm not really clear about his allegations.
(Probably because they are not clear.)
Besides the needed disclaimer that Aaron and I are
long time friends and I am certainly a steadfast supporter
of his, he's basically an open book, about the budget,
or any other Libertarian thing.
Like him or not, he's honest to a fault and will take
anyone's phone call or email.
There is zero secrecy about the budget, and no
need for any. This is all just an emotional blowup,
without foundation, and a waste of time.
I only address it so it won't go unanswered and become
another of the numerous false urban legends of the LP.
There is nothing secret about the National LP Budget.
All the money spent, and all the plans for it are open
and reportable after the money is spent to the FEC.
I highly doubt Mister Starr would risk time in jail
for a volunteer post we stuck him with by electing
him as our Treasurer.
He's not taking trips to overseas casinos or buying
himself Hawaiian hot stone massages and MaiTais
with the LPs money.
It's just craziness from the hater extremists.
Please. Read and enjoy, if you can make it to the end.
Aaron Starr // Jan 21, 2009 at 2:58 am
On a completely different subject, I hope Aaron will address some of the
questions above clarifying the apparent controversy with the budget.
I hope you will bear with me during this long response.
For those of you who dont know me, allow me to introduce myself. I am a
life-long resident of Southern California. I first started volunteering for our
party when I was only 16 (that was 29 years ago). In 1980 I read Robert
Ringers book Restoring the American Dream and was hooked forever. I then
proceeded to mine the books bibliography, reading the works of Rothbard,
Hospers, Von Mises, Hayek, Spooner, Bastiat, etc. I became your typical, young
lapel-grabbing libertarian.
I have been a registered Libertarian voter since I was 18. I have been an
anarchist and a minarchist. In my early years I was the type who would seek out
where others disagreed with me. Today, I look for where we agree. I ran for
State Senate. Ive been a successful campaign manager (actually electing
Libertarians to office). I served as state chairman of the Libertarian Party of
California and was apparently so unpopular that I served six years (elected to
a record three consecutive two-year terms).
By profession, I am a CPA. I serve as the controller of an $800 million
manufacturer of machine tools. When I started with the company five years ago,
our sales were around $280 million. Today, we are the largest machine tool
manufacturer in the world. I have a wonderful staff, work with great people and
I enjoy what I do.
Regarding the question on the budget, Ill do my best to explain my thoughts on
this.
The budget that was passed at the December meeting is on a single page.
It is composed of broad categories of activity with the exception of
compensation, which is a separate category of its own. I prefer this approach
to budgeting because I generally oppose micro-managing staff and this gives the
Chair and the Executive Director more flexibility.
The exact same format was used the prior year, and it wasnt considered
controversial.
(Several people have asked for and received copies of this budget. I have no
objection to it being distributed to any member who wants to see it.)
The next level below the broad categories mentioned above are individual
general ledger accounts (think of them as classification categories). I tend to
add more general ledger accounts over time in order to better analyze the data
and prepare various charts.
Typically, you wouldnt want to create financial statements based on this level
of data because it would tend to overwhelm the reader.
The next level below that are models I developed that feed information into the
general ledger accounts. The models combine historical information with future
projections, and include some rather granular and sensitive organization data
(e.g. salaries by employee, the cost of a fundraising letter, response rates,
expected attrition rates of new and existing donors, etc.).
As part of my oral presentation to the LNC on the budget, I shared on a
computer screen the assumptions that I used to compile the figures for the
budget. There was over two hours allotted to answer questions.
In addition, in the weeks prior to the meeting I gave two advance presentations
(approximately 3 hours a piece) to the EC and the LNC Mr. Wrights did not
attend where many questions were asked and answered.
I have spent a lot of time in my personal career developing spreadsheet formats
and formulas that assist me with presenting financial information. These were
developed long before I took on the duties of Treasurer.
These models were developed for my convenience, so that I could present a
reasonable budget. I own these and I am not inclined to simply give such work
away, any more than a programmer wouldnt want to give away his software tools
that he developed prior to taking on a job.
Mr. Wrights is presenting an argument that I am not being transparent, while
I insist that I retain ownership of my intellectual property.
I suppose I can commend Mr. Wrights on his great political framing. His
position is much easier to put forward in a short sound bite.
But I realize that this controversy is just a manifestation of a deeper
political disagreement between me and Mr. Wrights. I doubt that any of this
manufactured controversy would matter to him if he and I shared the same
outlook.
Mr. Wrights and I have a basic conflict in visions for how an organization
should be operated and managed. I believe he also perceives ideological
differences between us, though were probably much closer in thinking than he
realizes.
He believes that staff should be managed with a very short leash; I believe
they should be given broad goals and metrics and a lot of latitude as to how to
accomplish them.
He believes staff should be criticized publicly; I believe staff should be
praised publicly and corrected privately in a dignified way.
There are other differences, but I wont belabor the point.
Its unfortunate that we allow such differences to devolve to this point. I
prefer to see the bigger picture and recognize that most all of us have
something to contribute to bringing about more liberty to this world.
Ill continue to strive to be agreeable (while disagreeing). Hopefully, Mr.
Wrights and I will find more opportunities to agree and work constructively
together. I find that I get a lot more done with honey, than I do with vinegar.
Anyway, anyone can e-mail me to get a copy of the budget that was actually
adopted, which is the only set of measurements that the board has agreed to use
for financial comparison purposes during the year.
I have offered and will continue to offer to spend as much time as any board
member may require to understand any figure of this budget. I have done so for
other members of the board.
And if it doesnt involve sharing confidential operating data of the party, Im
happy to spend time explaining the budget with any other member of this party.
I generally enjoy teaching and interacting with people, so its not really a
burden to me.
Best regards to all,
Aaron Starr, Treasurer
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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