ABOUT PB CLE

People’s Budget Cleveland, or PB CLE, is a grassroots campaign to enable Cleveland residents to have real power to make real decisions about how 2% of the City’s annual budget gets spent in their neighborhoods.

We’re residents, organizers, educators, and grassroots leaders collecting signatures to put the People’s Budget charter amendment on the November 2023 ballot. A People’s Budget charter amendment would set aside 2% of the City’s budget for residents to decide directly how to spend on projects residents themselves propose. A People’s Budget in Cleveland takes democracy beyond elections. It’s a new piece of civic infrastructure that harnesses the collective wisdom of Cleveland residents, who are experts in their neighborhoods and who need to be at the table when decisions get made.

PHOTO: People’s Budget Cleveland Steering Committee

PB CLE’S STORY

PB CLE started in early 2021 when a group of residents got together to encourage the City of Cleveland to use transparent, democratic ways to make decisions about the $512 million of ARPA funding the City received from the federal government.

After hosting a dozen house parties and public meetings attended by hundreds of residents, Participatory Budgeting Cleveland, as it was known then, called on elected officials to commit to setting aside $30.8 million, or ~6%, of ARPA for residents to decide how to spend using participatory budgeting, also known as a People’s Budget.

In a People’s Budget, residents propose ideas for how to spend public money, and then vote on the ideas they like. Winning ideas get funded, and the process repeats. A People’s Budget started in Porto Allegre, Brazil in 1989 and has since spread to more than 1500 municipalities across the world, including dozens of US cities such as Chicago, Grand Rapids, Durham, and New York.

PB CLE members 2021 agreed that if the city relied on business as usual to make decisions about ARPA, it would lead to the inequitable outcomes we have seen too often in our unequal, segregated community. Instead, we demanded that this time, ‘nothing about us without us.’ 800 Cleveland residents and 60 Cleveland organizations endorsed our call for power to the people.

PB CLE hosted our first PB in Action event in Luke Easter Park, a day-long People’s Budget simulation where residents proposed funding mobile mental health crisis unit and public toilets and dozens of other projects - concrete, workable solutions that came from a process that elevates community leadership and the collective wisdom of Cleveland residents.

In 2022, PB CLE hosted three more PB in Action events in Glenville, Central, and Lee-Miles and another dozen house parties attended by, in total, hundreds of Clevelanders of all ages who learned about PB and shared ideas for public spending that would make a difference in their lives. A poll from Policy Matters Ohio and Data for Progress showed PB is popular with nearly 8 in 10 voters in Ohio cities such as Cleveland. At the same time, members of our ~20-person Coordinating Committee met with nearly every member of City Council as well.

PB CLE prepared a detailed proposal to Mayor Bibb’s Center for Economic Recovery that detailed how to administer a revised version of PB in Cleveland for $5.5 million. The Bibb administration turned that proposal into legislation they introduced to City Council with four co-sponsors, Councilmembers Howse, Gray, Spencer, and Maurer, in January 2023. The night legislation was introduced, 75 PB CLE supporters rallied on the front steps of City Hall, demanding ‘nothing about us without us’ and inviting members of Council to join this movement for deeper democracy in Cleveland.

The legislation moved to City Council’s Finance Committee two weeks later. Nearly every member of City Council showed up. While the four co-sponsors reiterated their support for this new piece of civic infrastructure, the other members of Council did not. In fact, many offered comments that demonstrated little interest in reinvigorating democracy in a city where more than 7 in 10 registered voters choose not to vote. Some members of Council, sadly, showed open disdain at the idea of sharing power with residents by taking democracy beyond elections.

Despite the setback, PB CLE again tried for months to find a workable solution with Council. But by spring 2023, after two years of education and public pressure, it was clear to the members of PB CLE that Council was not ready to enable residents to have power to make decisions about how public money gets spent. Instead, we knew it was time to ask Cleveland residents themselves – the source of power in a democratic system – through a referendum on the November 2023 ballot.

The road PB CLE has traveled together with hundreds of our neighbors has only deepened our commitment to building a democracy worthy of the people of Cleveland. Our neighbors deserve it. And we’re here to win it. We’re glad you’re here too.