Engaging Residents to Make the Tough Choices

As local fiscal conditions continue to spiral downward, many cities are combing their budgets, trying to find the “right” balance between service cuts, fee increases, hiring freezes and delaying capital projects. The “right” balance, however, is not easy to pinpoint and requires placing values and making judgments about particular services, activities and amenities.

The current economic crisis has required some local governments to take a quick, “across the board cuts” strategy. However, as the recession continues to take its toll, many communities are using the crisis as an opportunity to approach tough, complex and controversial budget decisions by seeking input from the community about their wants and needs, their evaluation of services and their priorities.

Engaging the community in the budgeting process is one way to help make more informed decisions, to strengthen trust with constituents, and to ease some of the political risks that come with budget cuts.

While a process to solicit and incorporate the visions and expectations of the community-at-large is more time-intensive, costly, and requires greater demands on city staff, the process has longer-term positive consequences, such as a greater sense of community and shared responsibility. The process requires that residents not only provide input, but also help implement and support changes, creating a situation where residents engage with local government to protect and advance the needs of the community as a whole, instead of a “vending machine” model of government, where people put in their taxes and fees and expect that much back in services.

There are many different methods for obtaining community input, including focus groups, surveys, meetings with neighborhood associations, and public hearings.

Local governments should be prepared to demonstrate how community input was used and continue the engagement process. Communities can incorporate initial input into a budget and then conduct ongoing engagement to measure citizens’ support for the plan and to continue community engagement.   

For example, Eugene, Ore., actively engages with the community on an ongoing basis in a number of ways, including citywide surveys, targeted questionnaires, community forums and project workshops. The city has several standing citizen commissions, including a citizen budget committee, and a network of additional advisory panels of community members.

This ongoing, multi-faceted dialogue with the public provides the city with an understanding of community needs and priorities that the staff and city council rely upon to help in the budgeting process. Last year the council adopted a budget that maintained a stable level of services by finding savings and efficiencies to cover a few carefully considered changes to address the community’s priorities.

Even with a larger challenge this year due to the current economic environment, the city expects to be able to move closer to a long-term sustainable budget by implementing a combination of efficiency measures, user-fee increases and service adjustments based on staff and community input.

"We benefit from actively engaging many residents in our budget process and service delivery," said Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz. "Because of the involvement of the public and the good decision-making of our city council and Citizen Budget Committee members, we know our budget reflects the community’s current priorities and we are in a better position now to handle the current economic crisis."

Community engagement can be used to solve many community issues beyond budgeting.

Local governments seek involvement by residents on issues as varied as: bond issues; education; race relations; land use; youth development; immigration; and economic development.

Details: NLC has a number of resources that can help city officials involve their communities in decision-making.  For more information, visit the Governance and Structure Topic page on NLC’s website www.nlc.org, or call Bonnie Mann at (202) 626-3125.

Democratic governance is the art of governing a community in participatory, deliberative and collaborative ways.  A number of successful principles have emerged:

•    Reaching out through a wide array of groups and organizations is critical for mobilizing large numbers of citizens, and many different kinds of people.

•    Most public problems cannot be solved without the effort, energy, and ideas of citizens and their organizations (including churches, associations, businesses, nonprofit groups, schools, and media).

•    In face-to-face dialogue, people can be expected to learn, empathize with people with different views and backgrounds, and change their own opinions.

•    Large-scale, open-minded deliberation, where citizens consider a range of policy options, results in public decisions that are fairer, more informed, and more broadly supported.

•    Giving people a sense of “political legitimacy”—a sense of status and membership in their community—promotes individual responsibility and leadership.

•    When people have a range of reasons to participate, they are more likely to stay involved.

From: The rise of Democratic Governance:  How Local Leaders are Reshaping Politics for the 21^st Century.  (NLC, 2004)