Raleigh staff say parks, water and public safety ranked highest in FY26 budget outreach; sidewalks and leaf pickup were most-cited gaps

Sadia Sitar, director of Budget and Management Services for the City of Raleigh, told the mayor and council during a budget work session that staff conducted targeted outreach for the FY26 budget development process that combined virtual meetings, five in-person listening sessions across council districts and public events including a Budget and Brews night.

Sitar said the outreach emphasized three goals — education, access and feedback — and that staff provided interpreters, childcare and a four‑page “budget at a glance” to make material more accessible. “This year, we took it a step further, and we're a little targeted in our approach,” she said, describing five structured questions asked at each session and live response collection through Slido.

The nut graf: City staff plan to fold the community feedback into department budget discussions and to return with additional work sessions in March and April before the city manager’s proposed budget is published in May.

What staff did and who they reached

Sitar said the city’s communications team used digital advertising, email marketing, radio (Spanish and English) and in-person signage to promote sessions. Communications Director Robin Diekel told council that Facebook produced the most impressions and engagement for the budget outreach. “Facebook is by far our most, impressions and engagement on the budget survey. Really? Yes, by far,” Diekel said.

Sitar described the engagement mix as two virtual sessions, five in-person sessions held in the evenings across council districts (Abbott's Creek, Millbrook, Laurel Hills, Pullen Park and Barwell Road) and a return of Budget and Brews downtown. Staff also demoed an interactive budget dashboard; Sitar said about 35% of attendees had heard of the dashboard and 11% had used it.

What residents said

According to Sitar, more than half of participants named parks, greenways, trails and pools among the city services they value most. Raleigh Water, stormwater and solid waste also received frequent praise, and participants singled out firefighters, police and 9-1-1 call takers for public-safety appreciation.

When asked what is missing at the neighborhood level, attendees most often cited sidewalks, street maintenance, bus frequency and bus shelters, traffic calming and affordable housing. On a citywide question, responses were more diffuse but included housing, transportation and maintenance as recurring themes.

Asked which services they would be willing to cut, participants repeatedly raised seasonal loose-leaf collection. Sitar said leaf pickup was “the big four‑letter word” that appeared at sessions; she added that she has already spoken with the transportation director about the complaints.

Methodology and limits

Sitar said staff used Slido to capture responses in real time and that verbatim answers will appear in the engagement report. She also cautioned that the Slido tool does not identify repeat responders by person, so responses may be amplified by attendees who participated at multiple sessions. When asked how many people contributed to a sample word cloud, Sitar said it represented responses from 21 people with multiple answers.

Participatory budgeting and next steps

Sitar said participatory budgeting (PB) had been intensive and that staff are coordinating with Transportation and Parks to deliver projects that resulted from the prior PB cycle; she said the budget office lacks dedicated staff capacity to run PB at scale and that council may want to consider resourcing if PB continues.

The city will incorporate the outreach findings into budget development meetings with department directors. Sitar said the next council budget work session on personnel and HR topics is scheduled for March 10, a session on annual grants and enterprise departments is scheduled for April 7, and the city manager’s proposed FY26 operating budget and five-year capital improvement program are scheduled for May 20.

Ending

Sitar closed by reiterating that the full engagement report, including verbatim Slido responses and staff notes, will be published before the proposed budget is released and will inform department budget discussions and the manager’s May proposal.