Operating Budget Proposal for the Security Council
Proposed Lead: alisha.eth
Proposed Operating Budget: 295,000 OP (+~200,000 OP relative to previous Season, which was funded by the Foundation). Please note this is the first time the Security Council has put forward a budget proposal.
Please link to any previous work or qualifications to be Lead:
I have been Security Council Lead since the creation of the Security Council. Please review my recent nomination thread for details on work and experience.
No major changes proposed to the Security Council Charter this season.
Breakdown of Council Operating Budget:
Timing
Season 7 operations will run for 6 months from January 1st. Please note, while this falls outside of the timeline for Season 7 (Jan 16th - Jun 11th) it is important for the Security Council to be paid every calendar month to reflect the ongoing nature of their responsibilities as set out in their Service Level Agreements with the Foundation.
Members
There are 13 members of the Security Council who have signing responsibilities on the Security Council multisig. Members are responsible for secure key management, verifying and enacting Optimism Governance-approved upgrades in a timely manner, as well as playing a Challenger Role when required. Additionally, members play a crucial role to resolve emergency situations, and as such are expected to be prepared to respond to an emergency situation at any time. To maintain operational readiness, they are required to participate in periodic liveness checks, proving their continued access to necessary keys. - Members (13) = 20,000 OP per member, per season
Leadership roles
Security Council Lead is responsible for coordinating rehearsals, upgrade signing ceremonies and emergency response incidents, as well as acting as the council representative when liaising with other OP stakeholders (such as OP Labs and the OP Foundation) and governance (i.e., the Token House). - Lead (1) = 25,000 OP per season
Infrastructure and experiments
This category funds subscription to a notification platform, fees for a monitoring platform, R&D related to multisig signing and related tooling, plus experiments related to performance incentives and rehearsal completion. - Infrastructure and experiments = 10,000 OP
Performance KPIs for Season 7:
Successfully reach the signing threshold for protocol upgrades on 100% of signing ceremonies within a 72 hour timeframe.
All members should maintain liveness, as expected by the Liveness Module.
Complete notification platform setup for emergency notifications.
Establish monitoring to trigger emergency notifications.
All members should complete any required rehearsals.
Security Council members should perform responsibilities set out in the Security Council Operating Procedures, the Security Council Charter, and the SLA with the Foundation.
It’s good to see that the Security Council will have a public budget similar to other councils going forward, and not simply unpublished funding from the Foundation!
The Grants Council budget suggested by Gonna states that the Grants Council will not be requesting Retro Funding based on their work in Season 7. I think the stated reasons are very clear and sensible. Certainly, from a citizen point of view, it is not easy to fairly evaluate “additional value” in a case like this.
I was wondering if you think the same reasoning applies to the Security Council, and if a similar clause might be included in the Security Council budget?
My understanding of Gonna’s reasoning is that because the impact of the Grants Council is likely most visible over a longer timeframe (i.e. over a year) it doesn’t make sense for Citizens to have to guess what the future impact of the Season 7 Grants Council might be.
I think Citizens can establish the impact of the Security Council within a given season (like Season 7). The timeframe of the impact is not in question here. For that reason, I do not intend to remove the Security Council from Retro Funding consideration for work in Season 7 as part of the Budget proposal.
I will leave it up to Citizens to decide whether the Security Council has impact that is worthy of being rewarded through Retro Funding.
Thank you for taking the time to consider and respond. It’s good to hear your thoughts!
I recognize that the impact of the Grants Council differs from that of the Security Council in that it materializes over a longer period of time (into the future), making it harder to evaluate - yes, that is a valid point.
That was not actually the comparison I had in mind, though. The reason I asked is that both the Grants Council and the Security Council get to define their own budget up front - meaning that you both get to actually express what you think the impact of your work should be worth.
I really like that, because who would better know it than you? But also, there should be some accountability associated with a budget; it should not be the regular case that a budget is too small and extra funding is needed/deserved by the end of the year. The point of having a budget is to know the expense to the Collective up front.
To me, this means that Retro Funding should only be applicable for you if you end up going markedly “above and beyond” expectations.
And that is where my difficulties begin, as a citizen. Because what would it mean for the Security Council to go “above and beyond” in times of peace?
I appreciate your trust in people like me being able to evaluate these things, but…
As the one who probably knows the Security Council better than anyone else, could you give me an example or two of going “above and beyond” that you think might apply to the Security Council, which could not be foreseen in the budget, thus making you eligible for Retro Funding? (In peace times)
Thank you, Alisha, for taking the time to craft and share this budget! We’re thrilled to see it made public. Following this logic, we were wondering if it might be possible to also disclose the budgets from previous seasons to provide a more comprehensive view.
Additionally, we’d like to ask about the rationale behind the nearly 200% increase, considering the 200,000 OP difference compared to previous seasons. As you mentioned during the budget discussion (recorded here) , was there any benchmarking or comparison with Security Councils from other DAOs that helped inform this budget?
The increase in the Season 7 budget for the Security Council, compared to last Season, is a reflection of the clearer understanding we’ve gained regarding the responsibilities of the Security Council over the past 12 months.
This requested budget directly corresponds with the ongoing recognition of the crucial role that Security Council participants fulfil, which is further reinforced by the results of Retro Funding Round 6 and the Collective Reward Framework.
The amounts in the Season 7 SC budget are benchmarked against publicly available information on other Security Councils, taking into consideration the that the scope of each Security Council varies greatly. The Season 7 SC budget is also benchmarked against other Council budget proposals in the Optimism Collective.
The SEED Gov delegation, as we have communicated here, with @Joxes being an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power we believe this proposal is ready to move towards a vote.