If success is in participatory budgeting is defined by the number of people who actually participate, Evanston’s 2023 experiment in citizen spending decisions was more successful than most.
So now, a new group called “Open Democracy Evanston” has organized to try to get the experiment made permanent.
According to a study by the volunteers and staff who ran PB last year, 6,724 people cast ballots in the month-long Evanston election in the fall, on how to spend $3 million in public tax dollars on a variety of projects.
City council, which normally votes on the budget, set that money aside for the community vote.
The backers say turnout was 8.6% of Evanston’s population, a higher percentage than lots of other places, including college towns like Durham, N.C. (3.4%) and Cambridge, MA (7.4%).
Evanston advocates were originally hoping for 1-2% turnout, which, they say, is fairly typical nationwide.
Twenty choices for public projects were on the PB ballot last fall. The top seven finishers were funded.
But with City Council not including PB in the 2024 budget a new group is lobbying council to put money back in, either this year or next.
In an email to the more than 13,000 people who signed up to receive PB information, Open Democracy calls PB here a “great success.” But the email also says “Unfortunately, the city council decided not to fund any future PB cycles. So we are starting a new community based organization” to urge council to bring it back.
The communication also includes a sample email, which Open Democracy is urging residents to send to their particular alder,
“I recently learned,” the letter states, “that the city decided not to continue with Participatory Budgeting (PB) this year. As someone who believes in democracy, equity, and community engagement, I find this decision concerning.”
Northwestern University doctoral student Gustavo Umbelino headed the original PB Evanston organization, and is now the interim chair of Open Democracy.
Umbelino told Evanston Now that PB “was a great example of how decisions can be made by community members who don’t traditionally engage with government.”
In other words, PB backers say that they were able to motivate and involve citizens who normally sit out the political process.
Umbelino concedes that some PB critics had “valid concerns.”
For one, most of the proposed projects were for social and community services, which, presumably, would be coming back to the city for more money once the initial PB funding ran out. (Or, says Umbelino, find a different source of funding).
Just south of Howard Street, in Chicago, they do PB a bit differently.
Former Ald. Joe Moore brought the first PB effort to the U.S., to his Rogers Park ward in 2009.
In that ward, PB dollars are for capital projects only — infrastructure items that require one-time infusions of money, not ongoing cash.
Another controversy surrounded Evanston PB was allowing non-residents to vote, as long as they had a “stake” in the community, such as owning a business, or working or going to school here.
That turned out to be 292 registrations for ballots, or around 3% of the total, according to the PB study.
PB also allowed those age 14 and older to vote, instead of age 18 in government elections.
While the report did not break down the data by each age, 14-17, 6% of registrants were ETHS students (512). Outreach programs at the school may have played a role in boosting student turnout.
While PB says it succeeded in bringing diverse participants to come up with project ideas, the folks who registered to vote were disproportionately white.
Only 12% of PB registrants were black, versus a city Black population of 16%. And the Hispanic registration was 7% versus 12% of the population in town.
But perhaps the biggest issue for PB advocates is namely where will the money come from to restore the program, assuming council is interested?
In 2023, the city used ARPA money, kind of a federal windfall, to spread out in a variety of ways.
But that money is gone, or at least allocated.
In the meantime, the city is working to get the seven PB-funded projects under way, although it may take some time.
And if PB does ever return, the city will have to hire staff, which cost $500,000 last year (including the price of outreach events, supplies, and running the election itself).
The temporary contracts for two full-time and one part-time PB workers were not renewed after the 2023 experiment ended.