Boston residents have less than a week left to suggest ideas on how some of the city’s money gets spent.
The new practice, called “participatory budgeting,” shifts a modicum of control from the long held mayoral power over the city’s purse. It comes three years after Boston voters approved it and put in the city charter.
So far, it’s generated hundreds of ideas, including a program that pays people to help senior residents clear leaves and snow from their yards and pathways.
Bessie Spriggs, a 76-year-old Mattapan resident who offered that proposal at a recent community ideas session, said she struggles to maintain her yard as she ages.
“And then, landscaping business people are so expensive and I can’t afford to hire them to do that for me,” Spriggs said. “I would love to see a budget for that for seniors that are homeowners.”
“That would certainly help me,” she chuckled, “and a lot of seniors, I’m sure, who are older than I am [and] who are homeowners.”
Officials with Boston’s Office of Participatory Budgeting said Spriggs’ idea is the sort they would consider putting on a ballot for residents to decide to fund after a feasibility analysis.
Boston residents have until Aug. 15 to suggest more programs, services and capital projects ideas that are limited to a one-time expense and do not create new, permanent positions.
Those ideas will be vetted by city officials and narrowed down to a list of 15 proposals, which will be presented at public forums this fall. Then, in January, Boston residents will vote for up to five of those 15 proposals.
Renato Castelo, director of Boston’s Office of Participatory Budgeting, said the final selected projects will be funded in the next budget cycle.
“And then, in the spring, we will be working to implement the winning proposals,” he told GBH News.
According to the nonprofit Participatory Budgeting Project, more than 40 cities across North America use this practice. So far, residents in those cities have suggested and voted to fund projects like free outdoor public Wi-Fi sites, public bathrooms improvements and a municipal contract to direct excess food toward community fridges.
“What’s unique about this process is that it’s open to all Boston residents,” said Castelo. “Any Boston resident, regardless of age, can submit project ideas for voting. However, we have a limit of 11 years old and older for voting on those project ideas.” Voting will also include those living in the city regardless of legal immigration status.
This year, the city’s participatory budget pool is $2 million, a figure that has been a source of tension between Mayor Michelle Wu, the City Council and advocates of the interactive budget practice.
Globally, the United States is late to the participatory budgeting party. The practice itself has formally been around since the 1980s, beginning in Brazil. It has recently gained popularity in cities across America.
“I think cities are recognizing that because of the way in which our industries are set up ... there are a lot of things cities don’t control that people want to see return on, and as a result, getting people more engaged through participatory processes like participatory budgeting is tremendously helpful,” said Tracy Corley, a Northeastern professor of the practice in public policy and urban affairs and an expert in participatory initiatives.
“There is research that shows that people are more engaged, they do trust government more and they trust institutions more when there’s both greater transparency and participation across all processes,” she said.
Here in New England, the cities of Hartford, Connecticut, as well as Cambridge and Somerville in Massachusetts have all launched their own city-wide processes. And over the last decade, Boston has practiced a form of participatory budgeting for 12- to 22-year-olds through its Youth Lead The Change initiative.
Tensions in the city
Even though Boston’s first citywide participatory budgeting is a milestone for a city notorious for clinging to its ways, its implementation has caused some tension between the Wu administration, the City Council and some of the city’s ultra progressive groups.
Last year, Wu and the council went back and forth over funding for the effort with Wu allocating $4 million to be spent over two years and the council unsuccessfully pushing for $10 million.
Neither amount satisfied local advocates.
“It’s disappointing, it’s frustrating that we’re at $2 million,” said Eliza Parad, director of municipal democracy with the nonprofit Center for Economic Democracy.
Parad argued that $2 million isn’t enough to make a difference for everyday people. The center had pushed for $40 million — about 1% of the city’s total operating budget.
“Part of the reason we continue to push for a larger portion of the budget to be dedicated to participatory budgeting is to be able to significantly advance racial and social equity in the city and have real, tangible economic impact on people’s lives,” she told GBH News.
Corley said Boston’s rollout is consistent with many other cities’ that have also allocated a very small portion of their budgets at the onset.
“The political risk that comes with putting a lot of money into something new that’s untried and untested is great,” Corley said, adding that the process should be refined incrementally through ongoing debate.
“In multicultural, democratic countries, there is no ‘set it and forget it’ if you want to have people participate and be included,” she said. “This tension is what you want to have in a democracy, if you don’t have tension, you don’t have democracy.”
The process and its governing office is embedded in the city charter and, so ostensibly, is here to stay even as the city struggles with a depressed commercial real estate market post-quarantine.
Castelo said his goal in shepherding the process is community engagement, particularly in communities where disinvestment has cultivated a pervading distrust of government.
That distrust peeked through when Spriggs was asked whether she’s confident the city would invest the participatory budgeting money in a way that’s actually helpful to her and her community.
“I’m not,” Spriggs said. “Been living in this city for almost 60 years, I see a lot of stuff that should have been done, don’t get done.”
“But I’m hopeful,” she added.
