Daly City successfully used participatory budgeting forums to engage residents in democratic deliberation regarding the allocation of local resources. The municipality has plans to continue engaging the public on matters relating to the budget and other issues.
Problems and Purpose
As with many Californian municipalities, the "Bay Area community of Daly City experienced declining revenues from sales and property taxes in 2009 as a result of the national and global economic downturn, as well as state “take-aways” of local tax revenues." [1] The recession also left California with a looming deficit crisis, forcing local communities to provide many social services that had been previously covered by the state. Unemployment meanwhile remained around 11%.
With difficult decisions around how to develop a balanced budget, "Daly City sought to educate and involve residents through a deliberative process designed to identify community values and priorities that would determine funding levels for city programs and services." [1]
Daly City officials had multiple concrete objectives in mind when designing their participatory budgeting framework. First, they hoped for some direct information and guidance from residents about which services and facilities they valued most. Second, they wanted to highlight the fundamental tradeoffs which were inevitably hard to reconcile, especially given the city's needs and limited resources. Third, they hoped to glean new ideas about how to minimize expenses. Fourth, city officials saw the deliberative forums as an effective way of raising public awareness about the budget and the budget-setting process. Finally, by turning the process into a collaborative experience, it was hoped that Daly City would increase public approval of the budget decisions that were ultimately made.
Background History and Context
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Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The community budget forums were organized by Daly City officials. Each of the forums "was hosted by the city manager and city staff in conjunction with a neutral third party facilitator from the non-profit Peninsula Conflict Resource Center," who trained community members in facilitation.[1]
Participant Recruitment and Selection
A total of about 270 residents participated in the forums.[1] Participation in the community forums was open and self-selected. Community members were informed of and invited to partake in the process via a special edition of the city community newsletter, containing extensive information on city revenue sources, services, and spending.[1] Included in this newsletter and also posted on the city website was a mail-in survey designed to gather informed opinions from those not attending the deliberative forums. The survey was made available in Tagalog, Spanish, and Chinese, so that residents still learning English could participate[1] and flyers promoting the forums in multiple languages were distributed to local community organizations and libraries.
Methods and Tools Used
Generally speaking, this initiative is an example of participatory budgeting, a method of democratic innovation broadly described as "a decision-making process through which citizens deliberate and negotiate over the distribution of public resources." There are many benefits associated with participatory budgeting including increased civic and democratic education; increased government transparency; and an increased opportunity for participation by historically marginalized populations.[2]
Specific to this case was the use of public hearings used to allow citizens to learn about the budgeting process and to question public officials. As well, small group deliberations with facilitators allowed participants to brainstorm and discuss priorities and provide suggestions. Finally, surveys were used to measure public opinion which in turn influenced the city's final decisions.
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
“We want to know what you place the highest value on so we can take that into consideration when preparing the budget,” Daly City Manager Pat Martel told fifty diverse residents who turned out for a Thursday evening community conversation in October of 2009. [3]
The city held four public forums over the course of five weeks in the fall of 2009 "in various parts of town and at different times - half were held during the day on Saturdays and half on weekday evenings." [1] The third-party facilitator trained those community members who were graduates of the city’s citizen academy or members of city commissions, committees and boards so that they were able to act as small group facilitators and could record the input shared by participants. The "forums began with a welcome and background information on the city’s financial situation from Martel, followed by a visual presentation by City Finance Director Don McVey." [1] Participants were offered the opportunity to ask city staff in attendance direct questions, and attendees also discussed priorities in small groups while a volunteer facilitator recorded their inputs on flip charts. Attendees deliberated on the qualities of a good community as well as which city services they were and were not willing to see reduced. [1]
The opinion surveys and public deliberations stressed the city's compromised fiscal situation as well as the tradeoffs that would eventually need to be made. Participants were requested to select the five most important factors in evaluating their quality of life, out of a list including but not limited to transportation, library services, public safety, quality of schools, community amenities, cleanliness of public areas, infrastructure, sense of community, and recreational programs. Moreover, the survey asked participants to list which services they would be willing to give up or see reduced in exchange for their top three priorities. Important budget information was also distributed, such as the fact that only 17% of property tax dollars actually went to funding Daly City services and programs (with the remaining amount being diverted to California schools, San Mateo county, and redevelopment).
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
“We will track the trends we see in the input from these meetings and the survey as well as an ongoing facilitated employee engagement process and make a presentation to the city council in December on what we have learned,” Martel told the meeting participants.[1] With a total of over 270 residents participating in the community forums and over 1300 surveys received, the council obtained valuable information about the priorities of their constituents to inform the difficult decisions and necessary trade-offs of producing a city budget. [1] Martel noted that
The most useful part was hearing what the public had to say in the absence of public officials. They were comfortable enough to feel free to offer suggestions... it will be a little easier for council to make hard decisions about reducing services since we heard from our public engagement process that people were willing to accept certain trade-offs to make sure that their highest priority services and programs would not be affected by the budget reduction. [1]
Martel expressed that she was encouraged by the high level of participation and "that more than the ‘usual suspects’ came out to participate" in the community conversations; she declared that the city will continue to pursue public engagement and community building processes that inform residents and encourage them to participate in constructive dialogues around other issues. [1]
The city found the forums "successful in validating the values, needs and priorities of [Daly City's] residents." [4] As a result of the forums' findings, Daly City's budgeting committee eliminated all discretionary spending and focused on providing core services. In addition, twenty-two vacant government positions were permanently cut.
Analysis and Lesson Learned
City Manager, Pat Martel, isolated the following key lessons learned from the process. First, "having public meetings in an environment less intimidating than a city council meeting, facilitated by residents who were commissioners or citizen academy graduates rather than city staff, created an equal playing field for a community conversation where the public was willing to weigh in on some tough questions in a very productive way." [1] Second, the lesson learned was that deliberative public engagement "can be useful" and that Daly City should continue to have this community building process. [1] Third, it is less effective when participants come in with a strong position and are unwilling to yield. Thus, having a dialogue where city officials just listen as opposed to trying to lead the discussion can go further in terms of empowering the community to have an opportunity to help shape the outcome.
Overall, the Daly City participatory budgeting forums were viewed as successful. The municipality has plans to continue engaging the public on matters relating to the budget and other issues.
See Also
References
[1] City of Daly City – Budget Deliberative Forum Story. Institute for Local Government. Retrieved from http://www.ca-ilg.org/post/daly-city-engages-residents-budget-planning
[2] Participedia contributors. (2017). Participatory Budgeting. Participedia. Retrieved from https://participedia.net/method/146
[3] Amsler, T. (2010, Nov 1). Cities Engage Residents in Budget Planning. Western City. Retrieved from http://www.westerncity.com/Western-City/November-2010/Cities-Engage-Residents-in-Budget-Planning/
[4] McVey, D. (2010-2012). City of Daly City Comprehensive Biennial Operating and Capital Budget. Department of Finance and Administrative Services, City of Daly. Retrieved from http://www.dalycity.org/Assets/Departments/Finance+and+Administration/pdf/OpBud10-12.pdf.pdf
External Links
Daly City staff prepared and sent a “Budget-at-a-Glance” educational mailer to every household in 2008; it can be viewed at http://www.dalycity.org/Assets/Departments/Finance+and+Administration/pdf/budgetglance.pdf
In 2009, the city prepared a more in-depth educational mailer and survey on the budget that was also mailed to each home and posted online at http://www.dalycity.org/Assets/City+Newsletter/2009/Vol+9-3.pdf
In 2010, Daly City included information about the event and the results of the mailed survey in their Winter newsletter, found at http://www.dalycity.org/Assets/City+Newsletter/2010/Vol+10-1.pdf