Participatory Budgeting in the United States · 2017. 9. 27. · Participatory Budgeting (PB) in the United States Main points •Incipient, comparatively small, but growing •Design

Participatory Budgeting in the United States

Benjamin GoldfrankSchool of Diplomacy and International RelationsSeton Hall University

September 21-22, 2017

Congress Hall, Ufa, Russia

Participatory Budgeting (PB) in the United States

Main points

• Incipient, comparatively small, but growing

• Design & financing too restrictive for major achievements

• Yet important inclusionary role & potential for improvement

• Challenges of funding, equity, and scaling up

Outline

1. Design of PB in the US

2. Finance & Regulation Frameworks

3. Implementation: origins & spread of PB in the US

4. Risks of & Solutions for Implementing PB

5. Achievements & Challenges of PB

Design of PB in the United States

• Usually restricted to certain individual city districts, not entire cities or states• 2 districts in San Francisco; 7 in Chicago, 31 in NYC (out of 11, 50, & 51)

• Focus on small infrastructure projects, not general priorities• 60% of approved projects for upgrading schools or parks (Public Agenda 2016, 27)

• Projects compete for voters• More competition than deliberation

• No criteria to favor the underprivileged

www.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Participatory-Budgeting-in-New-York-City

“Participatory Budgeting 2000: Good for the Whole World (or, Good for Everyone)”

From city-wide in Porto Alegre & Latin America… to city districts in NY & US

• Step 1: In public assemblies, residents discuss neighborhood problems, needs, and potential solutions – public projects

• Step 2: Groups of residents develop project proposals with technical help from city officials or civic associations

• Step 3: Residents vote on projects in person or online

• Step 4: The government allocates funds to the top-voted projects and implements them

Design of PB in the United States

Finance & Regulation Frameworks

• Funding restricted to a portion of a district’s capital budget

In New York, total PB spending in 31 districts = $40 million (Su 2017, 70)

= $4.70 per city resident

= Less than half of one percent of NYC capital budget ($16 billion)

• On average, across the US, districts allocate about $1 million per year to PB, roughly $10 per resident (Public Agenda 2016, 19)

Finance & Regulation Frameworks

• PB undertaken at the discretion of city councilors

• Over 20% of PB processes started in 2014 did not continue the following year (Public Agenda 2016, 18)

• Self-regulated by steering committee with support of city officials

• Wide variation in rules across cases

• Generally open to participation of youth & non-citizens

• Residents under 18 eligible to vote in most cases

• Documented & undocumented immigrants eligible in many cases

• 28% of PB voters in NYC in 2014 were foreign-born (Su 2017, 72)

• Little attention to directing resources to poor communities

• In city-wide processes like Greensboro, each district received same amount of money (Public Agenda 2016, 49)

• PB started late in the US compared to the rest of the world• PB started in one district of Chicago in 2009 by a city councilor advised by an

NGO, the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), led by Joshua Lerner, who studied PB in Latin America

Implementation: Origins & Spread of PB in the US

Implementation: Origins & Spread of PB in the US

As of 2016, 14 cities in the US had PB in at least one neighborhood or district, almost all aided by PBP

Risks of & Solutions for Implementing PB

Main Risks

• Implementing PB involves significant time for both participants and city officials

• If little funding is dedicated, results will not be worth the time spent and the frustration of participants whose projects did not get funded

Solutions?

• Increasing $ • Higher voter turnout with more money allocated

• Focus on larger projects & programs city-wide

• Include criteria to devote resources to lower-income communities where projects can make larger impact

Challenges and Achievements of PB in the US

• PB is new to the US, making it hard to gauge long-term impacts and use those impacts to convince politicians to implement PB

• Focus on individual city districts, lack of criteria to favor poorer neighborhoods, and low levels of funding make significant achievements difficult

However…

• Inclusion of youth & immigrants

• Engaging citizens in public decision-making

• Voting in PB ranges from less than 1% to 7% of the PB voting age population

• Similar to participation rates in most Latin American cities with PB

• Against gloom of political crises across the globe and in the US –inequality, corruption, voter apathy, distrust in political parties & congress – PB has the potential to recharge citizen participation