Subject: [fwd] My Comments on FC's Open Letter

From: [email-masked] (priv=-10 D.C.)
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 19:09:44 -0500

>From [email-masked]  Sun Jan  9 18:41:37 1994
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 1994 18:40:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: My Comments on FC's Open Letter
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
        [email-masked]
Status: R

    My Comments on the Open Letter of the IFCSS Council "Finace Committee"

	The Council "Finance Committee"'s open letter created probably
the biggest news of the IFCSS community in the whole IFCSS history. The 
reason that I put the Finance Committee into quotation marks is that I 
seriously doubt it was really from the whole committee. If it is not, this 
deserves a full investigation of the SVC because it is ablsolutely Dao4 Shi4 
Qi1 Min2 if someone steals the name of the committee for such a serious
open letter; however, let's assume that it is indeed from the whole 
committee, then I have the following comments. 

	1. The $5,030.0 missing balance from the last term.

	The "committee" did not elaborate where it got the balance of $74,530
from the last term, especially, $74,530 is as of WHAT date. On the other 
hand, the quoted $69,500 is again as of WHAT date? The IFCSS money is 
constantly flowing in and out. If the "committee" is responsible, why did it 
not tell us those dates? Can the "committee", as serious as it sounds, give 
us the dates of the said two figures in above? Please don't ask me to ask the 
IFCSS HQ. I am not interested in how you fight with the HQ because that is 
your business, but rather just demanding a fair description. If you give us 
two numbers of this nature that are not connected to each other at the same 
time point, they do not make sense at all, or you are simply
discrediting yourself for the seriousness you tried to convince people. If 
the two figures were not from the same time point, did the committee do its
home work to figure out how many reimbersements were claimed during the
period? On the other hand, it was probably a question to the IFCSS treasure
regarding how to ditinguish the expenditure of the last term from that of
the current term during the transition period; however, this is rather a
problem of management/technical type, if one is fair enough. But, how the
"committee" treated this problem? It claimed "It means that all remaining 
fund is taken away. But, where? By whom?". This is the most irresponsible 
claim that I have ever seen. If the "committee" has any knowledge about 
OBJECTIVENESS as it should because of its degree of "professionalization" as 
it claimed to have, it should know how to avoid using its own imagination and 
speculation when making public announcements. If you are confident, the 
public is probably smarter than you to figure out what happened as long as 
you provide the facts you know to the best of your knowledge. Any smart 
committee would know how to avoid getting itself into trouble for "stepping
one step further from the 'truth'". But unfortunately, this "committee"
does not seem to care. I really would like to suggest the "committee" get 
some ABC's on how to make a credible news release by at least watching CSPAN 
to learn how the US Congress subcommittees do.  

	2. The missing $144,439.88 of the CSPA money.

	This is really a shocking piece of news! For that amount of money, 
the corrupted party would be sentenced to death even under the CCP.
But, wait a minute. It seems that the "committee" believes that the 
remaining balance of $74,530 (see above) from the last term is true, which 
is the balance of the last term counting EVERY thing, including donation,
service income, CSPA income, and so on. If the last term balance in total 
is $74,530, which again seems to be the reference point the "committee" is 
willing to base on, that means indeed that the CSPA net income of 
$144,439.88 were transferred to the IFCSS routine or some other operation.
Whether it should be and how is another matter subjecting to discussion,
but, to separate this amount, on one hand, from the whole operation of the 
IFCSS, and, on the other hand, to use a $74,530 balance as the base is just 
an immaginable thing to do. It really makes me ask this question: why did
the "committee" want to give itself such an obvious hole? -- the total 
balance of $74,530 simply could not generate a missing $144,439.88.

	Maybe, the "commitee" wanted to say: "No, we do not even trust the 
$74,530 balance from the last term. It should have left much much more to
us." Fine, did the committee check into how the $144,439.88 was transferred
to the IFCSS general fund? The "committee" may blame the HQ of not 
cooperating with it so that it could not get the details of the transaction
of the CSPA money to the general operation account. Fine again, why did not 
the "committee" appeal to the SVC to force the HQ to cooperate, which is the
most proper channel for such a problem? From the existing messages on 
various nets, we know that the inspection effort of the "committee" was
disturbed from the very beginning because of the dispute on whether some
third party's involvement was legitimate, which is under the investigation
of the SVC. If I am correct, this unsolved problem caused the initial 
roughness from the HQ side. No matter what, could the "committee" commit
itself more to dig out the real problem, if any, of the CSPA money before
making such a misleading announcement that was not self-consistent?

	Also and again, I suggest the "committee" make an effort in the
future to match its language with its honorable identity when making public 
announcement like this one. The language such as "Can you believe 
$144,439.88 was all spent in such a short time period between June and 
July?" really makes people wonder if its from a personal arguement rather
than a committee of a national organization. Please think about it for
the sake of the reputation of the committee. By the way, if the "committee"
agrees to that the CSPA money could be tranferred to the general operation,
then it could naturally be used to pay back the possible negative balances 
before the CSPA money came in. To imply that $144,439.88 could not be used
between June and July was again misleading.
	
	3. The missing $80,000.01

	Another number for a life, if not death, sentence! However, the
"commitee" admitted "this amount of $80,000.01 may be overlapped in part 
with $144,439.88 as afore-mentioned. Therefore, the answer to this question
depends on how the sencond one is responded to.", although it claims 
"However, this third question still remains." I would suggest the 
"committee" go back to solve the problem in the sencond question first,
which was largely misleading already. Before you get that done, no matter 
how you are "however"ing, it does not convince the others, but rather force
them to give you a low score to your homework.

	4. Some general comments

	The IFCSS finance management should definitely be improved. I hope
all the parties involved in would cooperate with each other strictly 
following the rules of the IFCSS. In case of disputes, the SVC is the right
place to go for justice. Also, the officials of the IFCSS should probably 
be reminded of their responsibilities. Most of you are elected by the 
general CSS. You shoulder serious responsibilities, especially, the various 
committees of the Council and the HQ are serious places to "play". No one
should abuse his/her power by making public announcements that do not
match the should-be professionalized committees based on his/her own 
extrapolation. I hope our officials will remember this as long as they are at 
those positions.  

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