Maybe start paying staff in cubits- not necessarily a lot but maybe like 10/month for helper, 15/month for mod, 20/month for mod+ etc. And Staff of the month can get an extra 5-10c?
I understand why this idea may seem appealing to those who want to show their appreciation for staff, but there are some major issues with this being implemented. The long term implications of this severely outweigh the short term benefits.
1. If you begin paying staff cubits monthly, especially at 10 per month for being helper, you'll find that many more people begin applying for the cubits. There is a reason that helper, mods, etc. are not compensated (outside of staff of the month, which works for a different reason) for their service. Currently, the draw of becoming staff is to help serve the Manacube community, it's putting the needs of others first, and being willing to sacrifice your own time and resources to assist those in need. As soon as you provide a monthly reward for even just having the title of being staff, you will get significantly more applicants with secondary motives. Those who are payed for their work as staff, are likely on the ManaLabs payroll, and are payed both as staff and as developers. They help maintain a several gamemode server, and thousands of tickets reported daily. They are compensated for having significantly more responsibilities. Helpers and moderators are absolutely vital as parts of keeping the server afloat, but they have much less responsibility than those as admin.
2. Your suggestion of flat monthly rates is not good. The fact of the matter is, some staff have significantly more time to spend on staffing and work tirelessly almost daily. Other staff don't have the luxury of a flexible schedule, and are only available a few times a month. There's nothing wrong with being busy, and having lots of things going on in your life, but when you pay the same rate for working 10 hours a day and only being able to be active a few times a month, it creates a few issues. a) it creates less incentive to work as hard, since you'll be compensated the exact same for less time/effort. b) it creates tension and animosity in the minds of those who feel they deserve more for what they do. As things are now, those who work hard and have lots of availability are promoted faster and hence get put on a payroll faster.
(To clarify, knowing the staff team as it stands now, I don't think any of them would stop working as hard to get more cubits, because they are people hand picked because of their integrity, character, experience, expertise, etc. and because they genuinely love the server. However, when you combine points 1 and 2, new players who apply due to self interests may very well abuse a flat monthly rate.)
3. Introducing these many new cubits into the economy, especially at the rate you proposed, would be absolutely devastating. It has nothing to do with claims that "Dacon is greedy" and has everything to do with the fact that Dacon is intelligent, and, as a business man, understands how economies can fluctuate. With even just 10 cubits a month for each staff member, it would cause hyper-inflation. The more cubits that exist in circulation, the less cubits are worth. This would mean that either players artificially increase the price of crate items, or Dacon would have to officially increase the prices of things in the store. People who paid for $10USD for 10 cubits would find that their 10 cubits are now worth less than they were originally purchased for.
Things like the daily King Benny giveaways have much less affect on the server, when you account for the amount of cubits lost on tax from /ah, /cf, etc.
For these reasons, this policy-- as its currently suggested-- will probably not be adopted by Manacube.
This is all my own conjecture, and perception. I have not spoken to staff about this, but if I had to guess, these are the reasons why something like this wouldn't be accepted.