This past January city residents turned out for Budget Proposal Day. That was the first time in history where we had a public hearing on the city’s budget before it was drafted. As reported in the press, the public wanted to see $5 Million Dollars for Participatory Budgeting (PB), increased spending for public schools, and to decrease to spending on police.

At the beginning of May, the mayors office released a draft proposed budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Contained in that budget was a $15 Million dollar increase to property taxes and user fees, increased spending on police, no additional commitment to public schools, and no line item for Participatory Budgeting. The administration made these decisions in-spite of 200 people turning out to city hall to demand a drastically different budget.

Currently the budget sits in the hands of the common council. After the final public hearing on May 15th the common council can take 3 kinds of actions. The council can approve the budget as is, remove spending from the budget, or re-assign spending to another use.

The Participatory Budgeting Leader team is asking for supporters of participatory budgeting to speak at the public hearing. We need you to tell the common council to amend the budget to include $5 million dollars for participatory budgeting. In order for the common council to invest in participatory budgeting, we need you to tell them where to take that money from.

We invite you, to join us on May 15th at 5:00pm in Common Council Chambers on the 13th floor of City Hall.

If you believe in PB then we need you to tell the council how to fund it.

Without your voice holding power accountable, participatory budgeting won’t be funded.

Here are two charts for how the city spends $500 Million every year. We need you to speak at the hearing telling the council to fund participatory budgeting, and we need you to tell the council where the money should come from.

Questions, Comments? Call Brian at 716-852-3813