
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% HQ memo to SVC 1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


From ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU Thu Feb  9 17:36:59 1995
Return-Path: <ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
From: ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 19:36:48 -0500
To: svc94@ifcss.org
Subject: 6da investigation

FR:Jie Yang, IFCSS HQ
TO:SVC, IFCSS
RE:6da Reimbursement Investigation
Dt:Feburary 9, 1995


Dear SVC Colleages,

Before I come into  the specifics of questions  you asked  for answers
and materials you requested to make  available, I want to clarify with
you several points and express my concern  about the investigation the
SVC is currently engaged in.

First, "reimburse" may be  an inaccurate word for  us to use as far as
6da is concerned.  We in fact did  not reimburse or cover the expenses
participants  (including   both  delegates  and  non-delegates)  spent
according to the  invoices they   provided. What  we did is   actually
accommodating  those participants with  certain  amount of "subsidies"
which is  determined mainly  by the  distance  between Chapel Hill and
his/her local affiliations.

Second,  after I carefully read Liu,  Yuhe's appeal just re-sent to me
through SVC, I found  that there are  some discrepancies between Liu's
original  appeal letter and  the  re-statement  of which  by Mr.  Luo,
Li-Shi in his letter  to Ning Luo  dated February 6, 1995.  While Yuhe
was most concerned  about the checks issued  by  former President Lin,
Changsheng  to people who were  neither "Congress delegates, nor those
who were blocked  to participate in  final voting due  to not granting
delegate ID, nor  working  Staff", Li-shi's re-statement  dramatically
changed the focus  as saying "Mr. Liu  Yuhe of  University of Oklahoma
has appealed to the SVC, indicating  that there might be some problems
amd possible unfair treatment in the reimbursement process for the 6th
IFCSS Congress  delegates". Such a gross   deviation from the original
appeal demonstrates  itself to be  an  obvious misuse or abuse  of  an
appeal process for purposes unknown and yet to be explained.

Finally,  I will say that  despite of the  above oberservation and Luo
Li-shi's disturbing, ill-mannered  phone-behavior, I will fully  fully
cooperate as I  have always been,  with SVC  colleagues  to bring this
case a fruitful completion.  I look forward to  working with  Lu Ping,
Tang Tao and others as well.

Below are  my notes which  may serve as  a reply to  SVC regarding the
aforementined investagation.

Please follow the letter you sent to HQ.  I'll briefly respond to each
of them:
 
A:

1.An updated list mailed out already.

2.The  amount of convention   registration, according to the financial
report by Jeff. Lin, are $15,555.00.

3.Forms mailed out already.

4.Returned checks mailed out already. 

**I have   explained to  all of you   who called   me, as said  above,
distance rather  than value  on invoices or   receipts was  taken into
account when   the   subsidies amount   were  determined.   For  those
travelling by air, air  ticket was required in  order to make sure  he
was really coming by air and in a way to  get a better estimate of the
mileage. For those  by car(car rental or own  car),  receitps were not
asked to submit and many of them don't have any.

My  concern is    that   information irrelevant  of   subsidy   amount
determination is   confusing  to the   public  and may  very  well  be
misleading if such information is presented out of context and without
proper explanation. I have no problems  providing those information if
they are  available, however, I do  think that  you owe an explanation
that justifies your request as such .

**I   also  want to  know  why   you  particularly  singled  out those
individuals rather  than  others.  Is there   any systematic and  fair
criteria involved?  I am concerned  about people on  your list who may
unduly experience public explosure they don't like . In this regard, I
need an  explanation from  you so  that when asked   I can  share with
individuals concerned  a fair  explanation. Put  it simply, why  those
coming by car need invoice or receipt where their  subsidies are not a
function of the face value on invoices, or if any at all.

5.Mailed out already.
  
B: 

1.  Please specify individuals so that I can go back to check the file
and give you an answer.

2. "..Being reimbursed without actual expenses incurred" sounded vague
and unclear to me. Are you talking about those guys reimbursed by Lin,
Changsheng and Shi, Heping at Chapel Hill? Please clarify.

3. Set by 6da Task Force.

4. Yes. We had   a triple A   map handy when   we checked the  mileage
reported by individual delegates. Please help us  find out errors that
are   of   substantial  magnitude  so that     we  can make  necessary
corrections.  Otherwise, please allow to occur reasonable roundings or
even justifiable mistakes.

Thank you for your attention.    

Jie Yang
 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% HQ memo to SVC 2 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


From ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU Tue Feb 28 14:16:09 1995
Return-Path: <ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
From: ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 16:15:57 -0500
To: svc94@ifcss.org
Subject: 6da Reimbursement Report(SB)

Fr: Dr. Luo Ning, President, IFCSS
To: Supervisory Board (SB), IFCSS
Re: 6da Reimbursement Report
Dt: February 28, 1995

Dear members of the Supervisory Board:

Your report on IFCSS 6da reimbursement dated February 24, 1995 reached
me  on February 27, 1995 when  I came back  from a trip to Los Angeles
where I  attended a conference sponsored   by The Committee of  100 on
broad issues regarding Chinese community development in the mainstream
American society.

I  noticed  in  your  memo   that "The   SVC   would like  to  receive
your(read:my)  response by Wednesday, March 1st,  1995".  I assure you
that the HQ will try its best to  respond.  However, it is practically
impossible  to  accommodate  your  request   before the  deadline  you
expected, for it  means that I must  present  my rebuttal  within five
days to the report that took over four months  for the SB to complete.
Therefore, I hereby request  that the SB  allow more time to provide a
better prepared comprehensive   reply  to your  report  from the  HQ's
perspective. I  thus urge you to seriously  consider a new deadline to
be set on March 7, 1995, i.e. one week from today.

Thank   you  for your attention  and   look  forward  to your earliest
response.

Sincerely,

Luo Ning (signed)


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% HQ memo to SVC 3 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


From ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU Fri Mar  3 23:47:31 1995
Return-Path: <ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
From: ifcss@umiacs.UMD.EDU
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 01:47:22 -0500
To: svc94@ifcss.org
Subject: HQ Reply to "SVC's Report on Reimbursement for 6da Participants"


To:   Dr. Li-Shi Luo, Coordinator
      Supervisory Board (SB), IFCSS
From: Dr. Luo Ning, President,
      IFCSS
Subj: Reply to "SVC's report on reimbursement for 6th IFCSS
      Congress participants"
Date: March 3, 1995
Cc:   Council, IFCSS
      Public networks (upon release of the original report of 
      the SB)

Dear Dr. Li-Shi Luo and members of the SB:

Please find  the  enclosed detailed reply  prepared  by  Mr. Jie Yang,
Office Manager   of the  IFCSS  HQ, who  has been   in  charge  of the
reimbursement of the participants  to  the Sixth Annual  Convention of
the IFCSS, to  your letter of  February 24,  1995, together with  "The
IFCSS  Supervisory Committee's Report    on the Reimbursement  to  the
Participants of  the 6th congress  of IFCSS", dated February 23, 1995.
Please note  that we  have not responded  to the  first part   of your
report which   concerns about  the   reimbursement  processed by   the
President and the Vice President of the  last term, Mr. Lin Changsheng
and Mr. Shi Heping, since  it is more appropriate  for them to respond
to your questions.

After receiving your report,  I have urged Mr.  Jie Yang to  reexamine
the  reimbursement   process  carefully.    His   enclosed reply   has
reaffirmed  that as an  appointed officer, he has  tried  very hard to
accommodate different needs and in a most economic way.  It was he who
suggested to me last September that the delegate list published to the
public networks  include   the  amount  of  reimbursement,  with   the
intention of subject  the  record to  the public scrutiny,  to correct
errors hidden from  us,  and to set up  a  precedent of  openness  and
accountability.  This had never been tried in the history of the IFCSS
before,  and we were  not required to do it  by any existing rules and
convention.  I understood this act needed strong courage, for it would
also expose the inevitable human errors to attacks from  all sides.  I
supported his action and am  still standing firm  by him, because that
decision has received overwhelming   support from the Chinese  student
and scholar (CSS) community.

Since the publication of the delegate  list with reimbursement record,
the HQ has  received a number of  requests for clarifications and some
requests   for   corrections.  Mr. Jie  Yang    has answered all these
requests in a fair and  patient way.  Of  course, we cannot claim that
we     have corrected every  errors    and   have made every  inquirer
satisfactory.   This is  still  an open and  on-going   process, and I
understand it is  natural to  spend  extra effort to  ensure the first
experiment's success.  I  would like to  take this opportunity to call
upon the participants of the Sixth Annual Convention  again to help us
to correct the remaining errors in the process.

I  appreciate that the  Supervisory  Board has  discovered some errors
which have been hidden from us before, which will be corrected as soon
as possible.  However, I find it hard to  jump to the accusations that
you have  imposed   upon the  HQ: "Corruption  and  power abuse",  for
secrecy is  the best friend  of corruption and  power abuse,  which is
exactly what we, the officers at the HQ, have been trying to eliminate
since we took  the office.  I believe  that the Supervisory Board  has
never before in  the  history  of the   IFCSS acquired  such  complete
information about  the travel reimbursement   or any financial  record
from the HQ, which can only be possible with the full cooperation from
Mr. Jie Yang, as anyone with common sense could deduce.

I believe that  the collaboration between  the  three branches  of the
IFCSS --- the Council, the HQ and the SB, all elected by the delegates
at our national annual convention, is essential for the success of the
IFCSS.  Let's keep this in mind and continue to work.


Sincerely,



Luo Ning, Ph.D.
President



Fr: Jie Yang, IFCSS HQ
To: Supervisory Board, IFCSS
Re: 6da Reimbursement Processed by 6th Term HQ
Dt: March 3, 1995


Dear Members of IFCSS Supervisory Board,

I would state here, as I had told many 6da delegates who made inquiry,
the standards this   term's headquarters had  applied when  we came to
process  the    6da    reimbursement    or   travel   subsidies   last
September. These standards were determined together  with Ning Luo, in
consultation with   and on the basis   of those posted by  last term's
headquarters.

1.  By  Air. For those   travelling by air,  500   miles or less, $100
maximum;   500-1000 miles, $200 maximum;  1000  or more, $300 maximum;
Hawaii or Alaska,   $500  maximum; If  the  face value  of the  travel
expense less  than the maximum level   within each category, reimburse
according to the face value.

2. By Car. Without distinction of  driving personal car or car rental,
each legitimate person   was  reimbursed in  an   amount determined by
his/her round-trip driving distance at a rate of 10 cents per mile. If
more than    one delegates  car pooled  and   saved  money, which  was
encouraged, that did not affect his/her  subsidy amount due to him/her
as an individual delegate representing one organization.

3.  Mileage  reported by  each reimbursee was   in principle respected
unless deemed  too  far off   and  then cross-checked   with Triple  A
guidance.

With the above  principles in mind, let me  come to terms with each of
the problems you  have indicated and  present my  view on  your report
with focus on the points you  as supervisory board members and general
CSS are seriously concerned about.

A: Charge of "Over Reimbursed Cases"

Buffalo   Group: Each  of this  group   of delegates came  by car  and
reported  in his/her  respective  form that the  one-way distance from
their local organization to Chapel Hill is 720  miles. The round- trip
then   1,440  miles. Therefore,   each   of them reimbursed  $144  USD
according to  the standard stated above. Since  receipts of car rental
or of other expenses were not  required, neither of which were counted
when their cases being processed, I did not pay a particular attention
to this aspect   particularly to this  group  during the reimbursement
processing.

Albany  Group: The same   procedure  above applied here. The   mileage
rather  than  anything else,  for  instance, expenses incurred or not,
determined their  reimbursement  amounts. 750 miles   were reported by
them and thus reimbursed $150 UDS for each delegate.
 
You stated in your report "One delegate from DC  area asked for $57.00
in his reimbursement form, the  headquarters gave him $60.00.  Another
delegate submitted a    reimbursement  form of amount  $207.99,    the
Headquarters gave him $208.00,  one penny more". Please specify  their
names and organizational affiliations so that  I can further check the
evidence and better answer your questions.

As to the rounding we  used here, I would  explain to you that when we
began the  process  of  reimbursement,  I  made  a   spreadsheet which
contains the  information     of all the   reimbursees, their   names,
affiliations  and estimated amount according  to their mileage. When I
issued  checks,   I did not  go  back  to  the  original  paper forms,
therefore ending up with such rounding. I applaud your thoroughness in
this regard.  If you insist that I need to retrieve the one penny back
from this delegate, I will be more than  happy to do so. Please notice
that the same reasons of rounding  applied to the  cases of Mou Pu and
Li Keyi whom you mentioned in your report.

B: Charge of "Under Reimbursed Cases"
 
As in the case of Wei Song, after he received the  check in the amount
of $130, he called me and pointed out that his mileage was not doubled
(round-way). So, a follow-up check in the  amount of $134 was sent out
on October 10, 1994(Check # 2096). This change was made in the updated
list of 6da reimbursees  sent to you  through e-mail upon your request
on February 11,  1995. It may well  be due to the understandable human
error that you had overlookedd this fact.

Zhang Yunfei from Boston area  arrived at the final destination, first
by air to DC and   then rented a car   to Chapel Hill. His air  ticket
priced  $124, and his car rental  fee $90.56. With two different means
of transportation, I decided to  reimburse him  by  one of the  higher
amount, i.e. by air.  He should receive  maximum $200 according to his
reported   mileage of 700.  His   air  ticket priced  $124 plus  other
expenses $35,  therefore, reimbursed  $159 in total.  However, looking
into  his case again, I  think he should get $200.  I did not find out
this  mistake  until after I  read  your  report. Although  during the
period, Zhang  did not call  us asking for  correction, he should have
been subsidized the rest of amount up to $200 nevertheless.

Sherman Zhang (also named Zhang  Xiang) appeared in the original  list
twice  in  different  names. He  came from  Detroit   area by air with
reported  mileage  differently,  in   one   place   950,  in   another
1050(Notice:crossing two categories, either maximum  $200 or $300).  I
was careful in  dealing with this case,  thus only reimbursed  his air
ticket in the amount  of  $142 conservatively.  Here again, his  other
expenses  incurred should also  be subsidized if  the total not beyond
$200. I wish he had called me to correct it. I also thank you for your
pointing  out this  error  which was hidden  to  me until I read  your
report.

There  might be other errors  still hidden in  the  remaining list. In
fact, this   is one  of   the reasons  we   decided to  open  the  6da
reimbursement  data to the  public so   that people  can  help correct
hidden errors.  I also welcome those who have found errors call us.

C: Charge of "Inconsistency in Mileage Calculation"

The whole section on the "inconsistency in mileage calculation" is too
unspecified to allow  me to present accurate data  so as to provide my
answers   to    your questions  or   explanations    of  the  problems
involved.  You were  too rush    to reach  a general  conclusion  with
"evidence" pulled out in a wholesale  manner that seems to be careless
at least.

However, I would like to share with you and the general CSS community,
especially those attending 6da at   Chapel Hill our policy of  mileage
determination particularly as it pertains to those coming by car.

The first principle that  we held with  respect to the mileage of each
reimbursee  was following the  mileage figure each person reported and
we  respected it. However, if  I found a figure  that seemed to me too
far off, I  then went for Triple  A maps for  guidance. In fact, cases
like these were very rare.

It should be understood that  10 cents per mile  was already very  low
standard as compared to the general practice  in this country. When we
came to determine the mileage of individual students,  we felt that we
could  really  not compensate our  IFCSS   activists in real financial
terms, who  showed their support  and initiative  by driving, sometime
for thousands  of  miles, to attend  the  IFCSS annual convention,  in
spite of their own study and working pressure, and the summer heat.

I assure you  that it was  no less hard  for me to  decide whether the
mileage measure should be applied  with absolute strictness.  I  would
probably be the person  who is more than anyone  else willing to  save
money for IFCSS, because no  one like  me  knows better and feel  more
acutely  the  financial  difficulties   caused  by  the huge   deficit
inherated from the  last term.  However,  I must take into account the
factors other than the amount of money involved on paper.

For example, (just an  example but not real  case), 100 miles amounted
to $10 real money.   Even a person  reported the  mileage off to  this
extent, we still used his figure and reimbursed him accordingly, since
we anticipated  that  costs associated   with reimbursement follow-ups
such as phone calls or fax to and  from us to  explain and resolve the
problems in mileage calculation  or things related  to it would be far
greater than this, not to mention the cost on  the HQ working time. We
believed  that by doing  so we would actually  save  man-hours on this
matter and save potential costs of phones and fax, which we could have
used more efficiently.

Therefore,  we  decided to respect  what  our delegates reported about
their mileage in most cases, even if they in  many cases were slightly
over the figures that one would get from the  AAA map.  It is not only
more reasonable  to our participants to the  convention, but also more
economic.

D: Charge of "Arbitrary Decisions on Reimbursement for WK Staff"

The  concept  of  working staff  were   very  elusive as  far  as  6da
reimbursement  was concerned.   Anyone  who  had worked    for  6da as
voluntary  worker, or any  standard  by which  we  can clearly define?
First, we  reimbursed people as working staff  as long as  there was a
piece of written evidence or  to the best of  our knowledge. This  was
the case for  Fan Hongran, Qi Bing,  Deng Yanpei and  Ding Yungui, who
was reimbursed $339 for his air ticket excluding parking fee $24.

After we sent  out our  reimbursement checks  mid September,  we at HQ
received  letters  and   phone  calls  from   several  people claiming
themselves  working staff and  asking for more reimbursement. In order
to provide  an  appropriate answers to them,   on October 27, 1994,  I
particularly consulted vice president of last term Mr.Shi, Heping over
the phone on the names of people who  should be considered as official
working staff. Based   on the  conversation, I  listed  names of   the
working staff on a piece of paper and fax it for his cross-examination
and reference.  I have not got   any response from him  regarding that
list since then.

Wang Jing did  send us a letter and  also asked another person to  ask
for  more reimbursement as working staff.   However, we reimbursed her
according  to her delegate status as  delegete from CSSA of University
of Massachusetts at Amherst.

It  should be reminded that such  a list became  available rather late
when we almost finished most reimbursement processing. We did not make
further changes on those cases already processed. So, such list serves
as a record thus far in our file.

E:Charge on " The HQ Resistance to the SVC's Investigation"

I  assure you that  I have been trying  my best  to cooperate with you
during the investigation and will  always be so in  the future. I look
forward  to further cooperation  to better solve the problems involved
in 6da reimbursement and to better serve our CSS community.

Thank you for your attention. 




