Commission begins shaping participatory budgeting under Justice 50, staff to deliver August proposal

Siobhan, a planning department staff member, presented the commission with an early design for a participatory budgeting program created under Justice 50, the city's equity framework for the Ithaca Green New Deal. "Ten percent of the city's total capital project budget will be allocated to participatory budgeting," Siobhan said, noting the policy sets a percentage rather than a fixed dollar amount.

The program is intended to broaden community decision-making and target climate justice communities, Siobhan said, and would allow residents to propose projects that the public and staff could refine before a direct vote. She said the participatory budgeting committee would include both an internal staff committee to ensure legal and budgetary guardrails and a community committee to design outreach, review proposals and run the public voting process. "10% of zero was still unfortunately zero," Siobhan added, underscoring that the eventual dollar amount depends on future capital budgets.

Commissioners pressed staff on how outside capital grants would factor into the pool and on the feasibility of implementing the chosen projects within a single budget year. Commissioners suggested staff prepare model options drawn from other cities so the community committee can choose a workable template rather than designing the process entirely from scratch. Siobhan and Rebecca said staff will support the community committee and that the mayor asked for a proposal by August so Common Council can consider funding before budget season.

Commissioners volunteered to serve as liaisons to the community committee on a tag-team basis, and Siobhan named Katie Church as the participatory budget community committee chair and ACE as vice chair. Staff will continue drafting the proposal, assemble committee meeting schedules and report back to the commission in subsequent meetings.