After a failed citywide ballot initiative in 2023, the organizing group People's Budget Cleveland is bringing back the idea of participatory budgeting. This time the focus is on one city neighborhood, and the funding would come from private sources.
The group’s charter amendment proposal in 2023 would have given Clevelanders an opportunity to vote on how roughly $14 million of the city’s general fund budget would be spent. This time around, they’re working with a much smaller number — about $100,000. The money will come from previous fundraising the group did and from the Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities, organizers said.
"I think that doing a pilot could help generate excitement for other organizations, funders, city council members who would want to look to some proof of concept about how we did in one neighborhood in hopes that it could expand in some other form," said Molly Marcinkevicius, an organizer for PB CLE and former campaign manager of the ballot initiative.
The majority of Cleveland City Council members were staunchly against the idea in 2023, arguing a 2% diversion from the city's budget to participatory budgeting would have a "devastating impact" on the city and could result in "massive layoffs."
Still, Marcinkevicius pointed to the support of 33,000 Cleveland voters as proof that residents want to be more involved in how their tax dollars are spent. The charter amendment proposal was only defeated by a narrow margin, just over one percent.
Regardless of whether the city will adopt a participatory budgeting model in the future, PB CLE is moving ahead with its own plans. The group is hiring a full-time program manager to facilitate the pilot and holding information sessions on how Cleveland residents can get involved. An in-person session will be held Tuesday at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood at 5:30 p.m. A virtual option will take place March 31 via Zoom.
Clevelanders can nominate a neighborhood where funding will be distributed by visiting the group’s website by April 15.
