Tag Archive for 'budgeting'

Los Angeles Budget Challenge: Feedback from the Mayor’s Office

Published by Tim on February 9, 2010 in Participatory Budgeting. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .
A number of people commented on last month’s post about the Los Angeles Budget Challenge (both online and offline), and most seemed to share my concerns regarding the survey design.
Shortly after publishing the post, I reached out to the City of Los Angeles via the email address given on the site. I figured many readers might be interested in hearing their take on things, so with their generous permission, I’m sharing the reply below.
First, my email from January 7, 2010 (typos and all):
Hi,
I came across your e-consultation “Los Angeles Budget Challenge” via Twitter today:
http://labudgetchallenge.lacity.org/budgetchallenge/sim/budget_master.html
I have a couple of research questions:
1.  Is the site supported by any tools?
Does the site use any off-the-shelf tools (e.g. a service or software) to run the survey?  It looks like it’s custom-built using Adobe Flash but maybe you could confirm.
We recently launched ParticipateDB, a directory of online tools for participation.  I’ve added your project here: http://participatedb.com/projects/106
2.  Project duration and results
When did this consultation launch?  What is its scheduled end date?  And do you plan to share the results?
3.  Pre-defined outcome one question #12
WIth regard to the last item of the survey (Public Private Partnerships for Parking Structures/Meters), I noticed that it is impossible to balance the budget unless a participant chooses option 2 (”Yes. The City should pursue a P3 agreement for City parking structures only.”) or option 3 (”Yes. The City should pursue a P3 agreement for CIty parking structures and City parking meters.”).  Yet option 1 (“No. The City should not pursue any P3 initiatives.”) is still on the table.
Was this a deliberate design decision?  Or an oversight?  ;-)
Thanks,
Tim
Their response from yesterday, February 8, 2010:
Hi Tim,
We apologize that we didn’t get back to you more quickly.
To answer your questions:
1) The Mayor’s Office licensed the survey tool from the non-partisan non-profit organization Next 10, who in 2005 released the California Budget Challenge.  A handful of other municipalities and agencies have used the Challenge software to create budget survey type tools similar to ours.
http://www.nextten.org/
2) The Mayor’s Office launched the LA Budget Challenge on December 28th.  We will be analyzing all the results that come in by February 28th (2 month survey duration) but will most likely keep a version of the LA Budget Challenge up and running with modifications.  The results generated during the two month duration will be compiled, simplified, separated by planning region, and presented at a community meeting in early March.
3) We do understand that a respondent isn’t able to solve the entire $400 million deficit without choosing one of the P3 options that generates revenue.  The goal of the Challenge is to balance the budget, but a respondent isn’t required to solve the entire deficit in order to provide our office with feedback.
Moreover, this on-line exercise attempts to provide the public with information regarding a handful of real life budget decisions that the Mayor and City Council are faced with in the development of next year’s budget.  This tool obviously does not include all possible ways to balance the City’s budget.
That said, the Mayor does believe that a long-term concession agreement for the operation of 10 City parking structures is a viable means of generated significant one-time revenue for the City’s General Fund.  Similarly, the Mayor believes that a P3 agreement for parking meters needs to be thoroughly evaluated and may prove to be a feasible revenue generating strategy as well.
The Mayor’s Office simply wants input from the public on these P3 initiatives.  We understand that some respondents will not agree that these initiatives should be pursued and we welcome any feedback we receive.  Many respondents did not eliminate the entire deficit but have shared valuable feedback on the issues presented and on other budget related topics.
To date, we have received about 14,000 hits with about 3,600 full responses.
We appreciate your interest and questions.  Your comments will help shape the next iteration of this on-line survey tool.  We view the Challenge as a flexible input vehicle that will change and improve over time.
Please let us know if you have additional question.
Office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa
Finance and Performance Management Unit
LABudget@lacity.org

Fair enough. In general, I think it’s great to see municipalities embrace these kinds of online feedback gathering mechanisms. And yes, there is still a lot of room for improvement both in terms of the technology used and the processes that are being applied.

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Los Angeles Budget Challenge: When Surveys Won’t Take No For An Answer

Published by Tim on January 7, 2010 in E-participation and Participatory Budgeting. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Via Twitter today, I came across a new online consultation by the City of Los Angeles: Los Angeles Budget Challenge

How will you balance the City’s budget?
The Mayor of the City of Los Angeles is given the responsibility by the City Charter to evelop a budget plan that must be presented for City Council consideration by April 20th of each year.
This year, the City of Los Angles will be challeneged by many issues, including declining revenues, increased service demands, and soaring City pension contributions.
As we begin the planning process for Fiscal Year 2010-11, I invite you to help me develop my proposed budget by participating in the Los Angeles Budget Challenge where yuo will be asked to make some of the tough choices necessary to balance the City’s budget.

How will you balance the City’s budget?

The Mayor of the City of Los Angeles is given the responsibility by the City Charter to develop a budget plan that must be presented for City Council consideration by April 20th of each year.

This year, the City of Los Angles will be challenged by many issues, including declining revenues, increased service demands, and soaring City pension contributions.

As we begin the planning process for Fiscal Year 2010-11, I invite you to help me develop my proposed budget by participating in the Los Angeles Budget Challenge where you will be asked to make some of the tough choices necessary to balance the City’s budget.

The site does not require registration, but participants are asked to identify their age group and zip code. Following a brief overview of the current budget situation and some instructions, the site leads into a total of twelve survey items, a selection of key issues and related policy proposals. Each item provides participants with a bit of basic background information. Participants can then choose between two to four pre-defined options, each of which with more or less of a deficit-reducing impact on the budget.

According to the site, the city is facing a $400 million budget deficit in FY 2010/2011. The eight survey items under spending offer participants up to $293 million in budget cuts and savings. The four items under revenue offer up to $280 million in additional revenue.

Screenshot gallery

From a participation perspective, there are always a lot of questions one could ask for further analysis: How were the issues and policy proposals chosen that made it onto the survey? What will happen to the input? How binding is it? How does this fit into the overall budgeting process? Etc.

However, I just wanted to point out one easily overlooked detail that struck me as odd. Turns out there is one item among the twelve that won’t take “no” for an answer (the last one, which also happens to be the biggest, relatively): Public Private Partnerships for Parking Structures/Meters

Public Private Partnerships for Parking Structures/Meters

If you do the math, it is impossible to balance the budget unless a participant chooses option 2 (“Yes. The City should pursue a P3 agreement for City parking structures only.”) or option 3 (“Yes. The City should pursue a P3 agreement for CIty parking structures and City parking meters.”).

Honi soit qui mal y pense…

It’s not apparent if this site uses an off-the-shelf tool. I’ve added it to ParticipateDB, nonetheless.

Update: Looks like they’re using the Next 10 Budget Challenge tool (also added to ParticipateDB).

Participatory Budgeting in Cologne, Germany

Published by Tim on October 2, 2009 in Participatory Budgeting. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I usually refrain from embedding other people’s hard work unless I have at least some additional value to add. In this case, however, I’m simply glad to see my German hometown embrace public participation:

Participatory Budgeting Cologne
View more documents from Matthias Trénel.

About Zebralog:

Zebralog is a not-for-profit organization that supports modern democratic decision making through the use of interactive media. Zebralog offers every service that is needed to run online dialogues: institutional embedding, marketing, technical backbone and moderation. Its members have a strong background in participatory planning processes, social science and face-to-face moderation. In Germany, they were among the first to conduct online consultations for various state bodies, among them the government of Berlin or Frankfurt.

Zebralog has also offered consulting and research to organizations that plan to stage online dialogues, among them the Federal Parliament of Germany and the Federal Ministry for Development. Last but not least, the members of Zebralog are very engaged in networking activities to exchange experience among dialogue designers, make the opportunity of e-participation more known and work towards standards of excellence. Currently, Zebralog directs its creativity to the challenge of transnational and multi-lingual online dialogues and is very interested to find international partners for cooperation.

Finally, it’s worth noting that this presentation was held at a conference in China: International Conference “Participatory Budgeting in Asia and Europe: Key Challenges of Participation”, August 17-19, 2009, University of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, China