Participatory budgeting, a practice which involves a city or state ceding a portion (or all) of its budget to its citizenry to directly vote on how their tax dollars should be spent, is a practice nearly 40 years old. In Boston, it’s been a part of our fabric for 10 years via a youth participatory budgeting process called Youth Lead The Change. Recently, participatory budgeting became a process open to any and all Boston residents. It feels akin to our own practices–Ujima's investment processes are similarly participatory, and hold the same aims: for community members to determine where their money should go, to plan the city around them as they see fit.
Last spring, our editorial manager Alula Hunsen attended a youth participatory budgeting workshop in Dorchester. Middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults (like himself at the time) convened in a small room on Dot Ave, and learned how to come together, quickly ideate, and determine what they wanted to see in their neighborhoods. The Better Budget Alliance (or BBA: a grassroots coalition of community-based organizations in Boston working to increase democratic control over Boston’s public budget) had convened folks to practice this mode of relating to each other; Alula left with a better sense of what’s possible when we take control and imagine solutions. This year, Boston’s citywide participatory budgeting process is open and in its first cycle, and the BBA is continuing to organize and support efforts to plan together. Alula got the chance to speak with Kendra Patterson, a member of the Steering Committee at the Better Budget Alliance and Field Director of Massachusetts Voter Table, to learn more about how they support this work and what potentials lie ahead of us as community members and empowered budgeteers.
Hi Kendra, thank you for joining me. I want to start us off with asking: where does participatory budgeting (PB) come from as an idea and practice? And what can it unlock for Boston City residents?
Absolutely; we need to ground practices that are outside of the norms of this society, <laughs>. Participatory budgeting is a practice that came from Brazil, and picked up traction in a lot of different places across the United States (from Seattle to Los Angeles to St. Louis); many places now practice different forms of participatory budgeting. This is so important because it gives residents direct budgetary power: with the participatory budgeting process here in Boston, you can be a twelve-year-old resident and participate in not only thinking of an idea, but also voting on that idea as well. It’s grassroots decision-making, and it's a pathway to more civic engagement: exploring further participatory ways to bridge the community and the city, right? It's autonomy to make decisions, to work within our communities, to identify not only issues–folks always seek our opinions on the issues–but also solutions. We are the experts in our community. We live our daily lives on these streets. We know what's going on. We ride over those potholes in the street everyday on our way to work, right? So we can recognize what our family needs, what our community needs; participatory budgeting unlocks imagination, a creativity for us to say, “hey, maybe this after-school dance program is what our community needs to make sure that our residents are engaged, moving their bodies and being active while also connecting with their culture.”
There's another layer I want to add: participatory budgeting is also a means toward understanding the municipal budget process. Our city's budget is over 70% funded from our property taxes. This is our money. So we need to have decision-making power over our money, and it’s important to instill that sense of ownership as taxpayers–and residents, for those twelve-year-olds who aren’t yet paying taxes. This is not some imaginary fund, this is built from our hard earned dollars; we must have varied voices and varied experiences that really represent the Boston that we live in.
Could you walk us through an overview of the local history of participatory budgeting: from Youth Lead The Change through to the formation of the Better Budget Alliance, and ending with where we're at now?
Sure. Participatory budgeting started here in Boston with Youth Lead The Change [established in 2014], a process centered on youth across the city (from ages 12-22) that supports ideation and selection of youth-led city budget proposals, including a voting aspect. Following this was the campaign for Yes On One For a Better Budget, a ballot initiative specifically for participatory budgeting here in Boston; this ballot initiative also gave city councilors the power to make amendments to the mayor's budget, which is important in a strong-mayor city like Boston. That passed in November of 2021, and the people decided overwhelmingly to say yes, with 69% of voters supporting the initiative. The Center For Economic Democracy supported that campaign, and continued their work after the initiative passed to start the Better Budget Alliance: an implementation vehicle and coalition that works with and advocates to the city [on budget matters]. The BBA focuses on the participatory budget process’s development, ensuring that it is centered in equity and that residents have direct power.
There's another arm of budget advocacy that we focus on at the Better Budget Alliance, which is engaging with broader movements for things like affordable housing and youth jobs–connecting issues across different grassroots lines. This year, we came together to set grassroots budget priorities that we proposed to city councilors. We want to further uplift community voices and community needs in conversations about how much we need to fund equitable investments. We're in our first cycle, but we have to look forward as well, so we must have that investment at the core so people have money to really dream with.
How do you “meet people where they’re at” in budget advocacy?
It’s what we specialize in at the Better Budget Alliance, and in my work with the Massachusetts Voter Table. We go to folks’ homes, we knock on their doors–and, we're their neighbors, so we see folks at the grocery store, too, and we host events. This last budget advocacy cycle, a lot of our engagement with folks was through education: speaking with our member leaders, organizers, and city residents about what this process is and how to grow the fund for participatory budgeting through the city budgeting process.
I also want to mention that the participatory budgeting process starts with community assemblies, and many of our member organizations host them–these assemblies are places where folks can bring ideas for the budget, and they happen all across Boston.
Neighbors United for a Better East Boston, one of our member orgs, recently held an assembly with their residents where they walked through the history of participatory budgeting, talked about how to submit ideas, and set aside time for folks to think about and curate ideas together.
We definitely want to make sure that BIPOC and low-income neighborhoods in Boston are submitting ideas: so these educational forums, and these spaces to invite community and practice democracy with one another, are crucial.
Who are some members of the Better Budget Alliance, who we all as residents may have engaged with in the city?
There’s the Center for Economic Democracy; the Youth Justice Power Union (YJPU), which worked with all of our youth; Right to the City Boston; New England United for Justice; Madison Park Development Corporation; Neighbors United For a Better East Boston; and many more groups on the ground that are working very closely in all neighborhoods in Boston.
Could you give us a rose, bud, and thorn of budget organizing in this current budgetary cycle?
I’ll start with a thorn: we didn't get an increase in the participatory budget funds from last year. We're still at $2 million for the PB process; ideally, we would see more investment into this process. That's something that we're still advocating for. We ask for 1% of the overall budget, which would be $40 million–there’s a significant gap between that, and what we got. We asked for 1% of the budget because we're seeing PB processes in Seattle for $30 million, and $10 million in Los Angeles. We hope to make this a really robust program, and to do that we need a comparable amount of city funds to work with.
A rose is we're seeing the PB process officially start this month! Folks can submit their ideas and proposals for the budget in real time. We suggest going to a local assembly to take part in this process; if you can't go to an assembly, reach out to somebody from the Better Budget Alliance for assistance in submitting ideas. Folks can also submit ideas directly, through the city's website; share this with family and friends, and make an event out of it!
A bud would be the potential I see stemming from participation, from people joining this process. We are advocating for the process to grow, and we are planning for deeper and earlier civic engagement in our communities to make sure that folks are aware of participatory budgeting and know how to participate.
What should we remember as we start to engage in participatory modes like PB?
For us to have participatory budgeting and for us to focus on being resident and people powered, it is really important that we act and that we step into our power and participate. This is a real opportunity for us to not only organize with one another, but also for us to be creative and really think through what we need and what we need to prioritize for our own communities. So: participate. Even if you don’t have an idea yourself: brainstorm, talk with your friends and family, and make sure that your voice is heard.
The best way to stay connected to this work is going to an assembly that's happening in your neighborhood, learning more about participatory budgeting, and submitting an idea–have some fun with it!
Stay in touch with the Better Budget Alliance via their social media handles; sign up for their newsletters, which carry updates on upcoming assemblies; and take action! Submit an idea for city funding, and message your city councilor to ask for more money to be allotted to the participatory budgeting process.