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

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.

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:

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