What is it and how does it work
What is a People’s Budget (PB)?
A People’s Budget is a 5-step process where Cleveland residents make decisions about our city’s budget together. In PB, residents 1. design the process, 2. collect ideas in our communities, 3. create proposals from those ideas, 4. vote, and 5. and the City implements the projects.
The participatory budgeting model was pioneered in Brazil in 1989 and has been used in 1,500 different cities worldwide, including places here in the US like Chicago, Grand Rapids, Durham, and New York.
Why is now the time for Cleveland to have a People’s Budget?
It’s time to reinvigorate democracy in Cleveland. Low voter turnout tells us that many Clevelanders feel like our current civic infrastructure is not serving them. A People’s Budget - where residents have real power to make real decisions - is new civic infrastructure, a new invitation for residents to sustain and deepen our democracy.
We all want the freedom to make decisions that affect and improve our lives. Ballot initiatives let us exercise that freedom. In Ohio, special interests want to take our voice away by making it harder to amend our state Constitution with Issue 1 in the August special election. PB CLE strongly opposes Issue 1.
PB CLE wants to make it easier for our voices to be heard and considered with a truly democratic process on how the Cleveland budget is spent.
In a People’s Budget, who will make decisions about how public money gets spent?
In a People’s Budget, residents make decisions about how to spend public money allocated to PB. Every resident in Cleveland will have an opportunity to vote in-person or online for projects in their neighborhood or city-wide that their neighbors proposed. All decisions must comply with local, state, and federal laws.
The City is required to implement the projects residents select. City Council does not get to prevent from going forward project residents select. A People’s Budget is about people power.
What’s the role of the resident-led Steering Committee?
The Steering Committee is like a board of elections for a People’s Budget. They will write the guidelines for how voting will work, and how to engage residents. And they will run the elections by hiring trusted, local nonprofit partners to talk to neighbors, host idea sessions, and get out the vote.
The Steering Committee is made up of 10 residents, half appointed by the Mayor, half by City Council, and one staff member hired to support the PB process. The Steering Committee will publish a guidebook that describes how PB will work that year. Members of the Steering Committee may serve up to two two-year terms.
Money
How much money will residents get to decide what to do with?
The amount of money residents spend through PB will increase each year until it maxes out at an amount equal to 2% of the General Fund. The chart below summarizes the amount allocated to PB each year.
Where will the money come from?
The City will decide where the money will come from. About half can come from the capital budget, which is separate from the general fund.
The other half can come from various sources the City chooses. One source of funding is the growth in the amount of money the City collects through current taxes. Since 2017, City revenue has grown on average 3% each year, more than the 2% allocation this amendment calls for. In 2010, City revenue was $500,000,000; in 2021 it was nearly $700,000,000. The People’s Budget amendment enables residents to have a say over a small portion of incremental revenue.
How will the funds get allocated across the City?
The Steering Committee will create a process where residents can vote on how funds are spent on projects in Cleveland neighborhoods. It must do so in an equitable way, which means neighborhoods where residents have lower incomes and have survived redlining and other systemic inequities will see more dollars per person. The Steering Committee must ensure every resident has a chance to vote for city-wide projects as well as projects specific to a neighborhood or neighborhood cluster. Residents will vote by neighborhood, or by cluster of neighborhoods. Voting will not happen by ward, since wards are political lines that change every so often.
Background
Who is PB CLE?
People’s Budget Cleveland (PB CLE) is a grassroots coalition of 900 residents and 17 endorsing community groups. We formed in spring 2021 to advocate for residents to have real power to make real decisions about how public money gets spent in their neighborhood using a process called participatory budgeting, or a People’s Budget (PB).
We launched a ballot initiative campaign in May 2023 to enable residents to decide whether or not they want to bring PB to Cleveland by amending the city charter. The charter amendment would institutionalize PB as a direct democracy tool, ensuring Cleveland residents have the power to make decisions about how to spend 2% of the city budget.
What research and best practices inform the proposed charter amendment?
Our amendment is informed by two years of detailed research; meetings with nearly all members of Cleveland City Council; technical interviews with dozens of experts from around the country; first-rate legal counsel; crafting legislation with Mayor’s administration in January; line-item edits from dozens of local and national partners; and, most importantly, conversations with hundreds of Cleveland residents about their specific ideas about what they need from their local government.