Explanation
This ordinance authorizes the City Clerk to enter into a fiscal agency agreement with the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) to provide payment to residents serving as facilitators for budget delegates during the participatory budgeting initiative.
The Our Voice, Our Choice participatory budgeting initiative has seen tremendous community engagement: between July 6th and August 28th of this year, the city received over 750 project proposals from residents. Following completion of the proposal submissions stage, the initiative shifted to feasibility review, wherein administration staff evaluated the project proposals against criteria for cost, capital eligibility, and estimated timeline to determine if projects should advance to the next stage. The feasibility review process has now been completed.
In this next stage, Impact & Equity Review, volunteer budget delegates will review those projects that have advanced through feasibility review to ultimately craft a ballot of projects for their district. Residents will then select from those projects on the ballot, totaling no more than $1 million, for implementation.
While the role of budget delegate is voluntary and unpaid, some residents will serve as facilitators, which will entail additional work and responsibilities and for which they will be compensated $500. Facilitators will ensure that budget delegates have the information and resources necessary to complete their work, they will set meeting agendas and establish meeting processes, and they will ensure that budget delegates are able to assemble a ballot in time for voting, which is currently scheduled to begin in mid-January.
PBP has agreed to act as a fiscal agent for the distribution of these payments, for which they will be paid an administrative fee of $1,500.
Fiscal Impact: Funding is available within the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund.
Title
To authorize the City Clerk to enter a fiscal agency agreement with The Participatory Budg...
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