Legate Marcellus Seanus, Scribe Bashir, District Program

[Mia]

[The following letter is delivered to the office of Legate Marcellus Seanus. A second copy exists with the addressee 'Scribe Bashir'. The text is written in a cursive, delicate handwriting.]

New District Project

As discussed in our meeting. Below is a list of all the options we considered to finance the district. The Chief Scribe had issued us a presumptive, temporary price range of;

500.000 Dinar for the Walls & Gate
500.000 Dinar for the District

The list in full:

Licenses
Fines
Property Taxes
Property Sales
Tolls
Loans
Water Sales
Sponsored Games or Festivities
Attacking and Plundering Settlements
Selling bonds

Groknak Skull Discount
Tlonsiyya Windmills
Using the Rose derelict buildings as a Foundation
Empty plots of land, leaving construction to citizens
Spend less on Allotments

Ways of increasing revenue:

Licenses

Licenses issued and sold by our scribes contribute to the state treasury. At the moment there are seven licenses in circulation; Divination, Engineering, Archaeology, Alchemy, Herbalism, Narcotics and Trading. There are three factors we can consider when using licenses to increase our revenue; Adding new licenses, Encouraging people to buy more licenses and require licenses to be renewed after a term.

Ideas for new licenses include, but are not exhaustive: A license for selling luxury or magical goods, a license for keeping pets, a license for organizing public gatherings such as festivals, debates and sports, a license for keeping poisons, a license for proselytizing and sermons. Each of these can be introduced by law, and sold. Simple and straightforward.

To encourage people to buy more licenses we would benefit from defining where what licenses apply and inform the Janissaries to pursue the possession of licenses in those scenarios more carefully. Educating our citizens about the need and application of licenses will result in further sales. Furthermore, various craftsmanship as trade and alchemy can be encouraged with incentives and requests. And as the appeal for such craftsmanship will increase, so will the people engaging in them and the licenses sold.

My suggestion regarding license renewal is to charge 200 to 300 dinar once a month, per license, for owners of licenses. For this scribes will be expected to note and archive the dates of licenses sold and inquire one month later for a new sum. With a Janissary being informed if the payment is more than a week late, to revoke said license. I would personally suggest to not pursue license renewal retroactively, as this is a lot of work and hard to chase down. But simply do so going forward. In a few months time this new law will reap rewards. As such I suggest condoning old licenses. Or ask people to come forward, and then condone those that don't do so.

Fines

Deposited Janissary fines end up in our state treasury. They are dependent on citizen infractions and the ability of the fourth legion to pursue them. We have some control over both factors. We can encourage Janissary recruitment, which in itself can be costly. We can reward the Janissaries who acquire the most fines by making it a competition and through doing so encourage their chase. The screws we can turn on the side of citizen infractions I do not encourage using, as the political ramifications would be large for small gains, but would include adding silly laws that people are likely to break, just to fine them. Such as 'everyone must wear brown clothing' laws, or similar. Lastly, you can order Magistrates and Sergeants to issue primarily fines as punishment for serious crimes.

Property Taxes

Property taxes can be used to increase revenue for the state. Simple and straightforward. But always caught up in a fine balance with property sales. As the higher the tax is, the less likely people will feel encouraged to rent property. But certain people, particularly merchants and companies, will hold unto their properties regardless of the rent. Who I believe currently are the main property owners as of our discussion. So unless we can increase property sales, there is only revenue loss overall if we choose to keep the property taxes as low as they currently are.

Property Sales

To increase and encourage property sales and maintenance of their rent, I suggest we incentivize people to holding property, even empty property. The appeal of being able to store your belongings seems to only hold sway over merchants, to add a further incentive we could appeal to status. We could do this by for example giving landowning voiced extra weight during assemblies, such as being allowed to speak before normal voiced. Or making it a prerequisite to buying multiple licenses from the scribes.

Tolls

Gates cost money. Both in maintaining them and building them. As such it is fair practice to make frequent users pay a little extra for their use. Tolls, of even five dinar, at all three gates, could significantly contribute to either directly financing the state treasury. Or doing so indirectly, by adding the toll money to Banda Rossa and Janissary pots respectively, and thus reduce the burden on state allotment. You could make the practice competitive by allowing the respective groups to adjust the toll by their own Sergeants and Balestierés.

Loans

We have the option of acquiring loans to cover our expenses. Various city states and private companies can be scouted to provide such a loan. I do not believe such wealth is internally available within our own city. Perhaps the Clergy of B'aara, extended from Baz'eels great Temple. See also the next segment for the collateral.

Water Sales

As you know our city produces an estimated 500 barrels a month. Roughly 50 of those are consumed by the accord and the city itself. The remaining 450 barrels disappear to Baz'eel as tithe. And our current policy for water is to tithe all the barrels 'that the city does not use'. But we have many citizens of the sultan clinging outside of our walls. They need both water and we need funds to help them. As such I consider the best solution to are predicament that we inform the delegates from Baz'eel that we will only be able to donate 400 barrels starting this month. And that the remaining 50 barrels will need to be bought by private companies in Baz'eel (or elsewhere).

This new monthly influx of funds can then be used as collateral in a loan of about a million dinar, which we can use to immediately fund the new district and start construction. If the estimated net-income (after Baz'eeli important taxes and transport) for these barrels is between 50.000-100.000 dinar, we will be effectively committing 50 of these barrels for the next 1-2 years. But it will allow us to grow immediately, and as opposed to slow grow, we will be able to rescue more lives and increase our labour force. 

Many variations on this idea exist; such as not selling the water to Baz'eel, but elsewhere. Not going into debt for a slower effect. Withholding even more barrels from the tithe. Taking a loan from another city, such as Il Modo. But I think we both agree Baz'eel should be our first choice.

Citizen Donations

An appeal to charity can be made, and we can accept citizen dinar to fund a portion of the project.

Sponsored Games or Festivities

Leaning on our artists and proactive organizers, we can have the state support the creation of plays and sports and ask the crowd to pay for entry. Important in such activities is that the crowd pays more than prize-money for the participants and actors. Else there is no revenue to be had.

Attacking and Plundering Settlements

This one deserves mentioning as an option. And applies to chiefly lizardfolk and orc encampments. But I would strongly discourage raiding and plundering civilized settlements like Kha'esh, Tlonsiyya or Qadira.

Selling bonds

The state can accept citizen donations through bonds rather than charity. And promise them something in the future in exchange for their money now.

Ways to decrease cost of the District:

Groknak Skull Discount

You had expressed we might get a discount on construction from the Stonefolk community for adhering to their wishes on the lives of Groknaks. This will need to be investigated.

Tlonsiyya Windmills

The town of Tlonsiyya has offered to sell us their spare metal windmills. Devices which run on baublium, but that they themselves also use to deflect the ashstorms that plague our world. As expansion of the shade comes with its own price tag and costs, the costs and investment of the windmills should be investigated as an alternative and compared in price costs. There is also the unwritten cost of addicting Ephia's Well to the narcotic of Baublium. Which tarnishes our self sufficiency some. But given that we also depend on Alkab for feeding our population, this is nothing new.

Using the Rose derelict buildings as a Foundation

The presumptive temporary price range suggested by the Chief Scribe was based on construction around the Rose gate. And uses the derelict buildings from Orentid times as a foundation. It will need to be investigated if this is part of the equation the Chief Scribe made. And whether clearing these structures will cost more, or less than the Sand gate option.

Empty plots of land, leaving construction to citizens

If we start construction with the wall and the windmills and/or shade. We will have a region that is relatively safe but won't yet have houses. This is a valid intermittent step and breaks up some of the urgency required. As people in tents behind walls under the protection of our shade are still needy, but not in direct danger.

Spend less on Allotments

Fairly straightforward, comes with a lot of consequences.

We should stay in contact on developments on this program.

Yours Faithfully,
Magistrate Sephidra Niridhe

[Fabulous Secret Powers]

Magistrate Niridhe,


new licensure is highly unlikely to be officialized under currently prevalent circumstances. A number of these circumstances revolve around Scribe Abalom, the original architect of the entire licensure system. If any new license is to have any hope of being actualized, it would have to be as effortless to implement as possible, and be related to an activity where its nationalized administration would be accepted, at the very least on an eventual basis. A more efficient and probable approach would be to return previously held licensure back to us. We do not hold inefficient and highly biased interviews while speaking with prospective licensees, which is an improvement in itself.

When it comes to renewable licenses, a monthly or bimonthly renewal would be the only sensible framework, as we have discussed before, and it is good that you recognize this. A weekly system involves far too much paperwork, for both us Scribes and the licensees. If Ephians had to queue up at the Pyramid each and every week, simply to ply their trade, there would be riots. I do not understand how so many can miss this self-evident fact while making suggestions of this nature.

The processing fees for licenses vary. For a trading license, this fee is approximately a third of its cost to the public. For alchemy licenses, the fee is almost half of the price, and is therefore almost the same sum as your proposed upper limit of 300. We Scribes pay these fees out of our own pocket. However, we are compensated for doing so, by being granted a share of the profits from finalized sales.

As such, pricing has to take these factors into account. If the prices are too high, this will obviously be protested by the populace, and lead to an increase in forged documents. Yet if they are too low, i.e. lower than the processing fees, we will end up in an absurd situation where no profit is actually being made, and we Scribes are simply shoving our own money into the treasury.

Now, reductions to these processing fees are possible, of course. Yet reaching that goal is a most difficult task. This would involve a complex upheaval of the current bureaucratic system surrounding the licensure paperwork, alongside arduous negotiations for the procurement of cheaper ink, paper, and wax, alongside other important materials. It is very likely that this would lead to the reduced quality of said materials.

It should also be noted that our records are quite extensive, and include the dates of purchases already. Non-retroactive handling of changes could lead to complications, and incessant queries from the Fourth to confirm that someone indeed is one of these "legacy" licensees. Multiple licenses requiring ownership of property is an interesting idea... Yet the people that buy multiple licenses are actually quite often the least likely to need property of their own in the first place. They tend to be officialized merchants of their respective factions, and they therefore have access to the lodgings provided by their affliation.


Please contact the Scribes if you have further queries,

Senior Scribe Bashir Khatara