Brewer Announces Participatory Budgeting

Council Member Gale A. Brewer announced last week that her office will conduct a Participatory Budgeting process for the 2022-23 fiscal year, and opened the online proposal process.

“Participatory Budgeting is a way to involve more members of the community in the critical decision making that can improve our neighborhoods,” said Brewer, who represents Council District 6. “Ideas that come from the grass roots can be among the most innovative and effective in affecting our quality of life. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes up this year!”

Community members will be able to suggest, evaluate, and vote on how to spend $1 million in city capital funding allocated to the 6th Council District. Capital funding generally describes physical infrastructure projects that benefit the public, cost at least $50,000, and have a lifespan of at least five years.

The idea collection and suggestion phase is open now until January 23, 2022, during which residents are invited to share project ideas that could be implemented within the 6th District, which includes most of the Upper West Side and all of Central Park. Suggestions can be made online here.

The subsequent phase involves submitting the ideas to appropriate city agencies and community-based organizations (CBOs) who will analyze and estimate the cost of the ideas in early February. Then, 6th District participatory budgeting committees will review the responses from those agencies and CBOs and select final projects for the ballot, which will be voted on in early April. The winning proposals for the $1 million in capital funding will then be included in District 6 appropriations for the city fiscal year that begins July 1, 2022, and implemented by city agencies and local CBOs.

Participatory budgeting was first developed in Brazil in 1989. There are now over 3,000 participatory budgets around the world, most at the municipal level.