“Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. In other words, the people who pay taxes decide how tax dollars get spent. Participatory budgeting helps make budget decisions clear and accessible. It gives real power to people who have never before been involved in the political process. And it results in better budget decisions – because who better knows the needs of our community than the people who live there?” – PBNYC.org
The participatory budgeting process has gained significance over the past decade, as the importance given to it has grown larger in scale. It allows for a better reallocation of funds in a neighborhood because the members of that community get to decide where those funds will be going rather than having them go towards a nonexistent problem.
When you give people a voice or an outlet they will use it to further prosperity of those around them. This is most evident from the information given in the article, “Participatory Budgeting in New York City.” Ms.Su states that “half of 2014 PB voters had never worked with others on a community issue before. One third were foreign-born. In one district, over two thirds of distributed ballots were in languages other than English. Further, census block groups served by PB allocations had 20% higher percentages of minority residents and families with income below the poverty level (Goldberg and Finkelstein 2014).” This information shows us that people are interested and concerned about what goes on in their neighborhoods and how their problems are being dealt with. Even though some residents did not understand English and the proposals being put forward they still attended the meeting in order to grasp what the future of their neighborhood would look like.
There are many advantages and disadvantages to participatory budgeting. Some advantages are: it helps establish a good communication between the residents of a neighborhood and councilmembers; it helps sustain efficient resource allocation; helps the members of the neighborhood develop skills in policy making, budgeting, and management; it increases organizational commitment; it helps the establishment of more realistic and achievable objectives. The disadvantages that came up with participatory budgeting are: it is difficult to get the members to communicate and disclose information to higher authorities (ex. The high school students were afraid to bring up issues to their principals); In some cases the members may not have relevant information or necessary knowledge that helps them justify their proposal or even participation (i.e they are not trained).
I believe that the benefits of the participatory budgeting system outweigh the disadvantages because the disadvantages are no longer valid or applicable after a successful system is already in place. I.e a network of communication and unification of the members of the community has already occurred and is in place. And the spillover effects of participatory budgeting outweigh any inconvenience that the members have to go through in the initial process.
