Cambridge lets residents decide how to spend $500K

Cambridge recently joined other cities around the country in testing a new initiative called “participatory budgeting.”

The initiative lets residents directly vote on how to spend $500,000 from the public budget.

More than 2,700 residents, age 12 and up, voted among 20 proposals during the week of March 22-28. Residents were able to vote online, by text message, or at various locations throughout the city.

Six project proposals won funding for fiscal 2016. They include: 100 new trees and tree wells, 20 new laptops for the Community Learning Center, bilingual books for children, a public toilet in Central Square, eight bike repair stations, and free public Wi-Fi in six locations.

The participatory budgeting idea was first brought to the city manager about a year ago by Councillor Lelund Cheung, according to Michele Monseguer, a budget analyst in Cambridge.

The city manager approved the idea, and the city set aside $500,000 to be used for one-time capital projects. The city put out the word to residents, giving them the month of December to brainstorm and submit ideas, Monseguer said.

The city then set up volunteer committees to help turn the ideas into actual project proposals. City staff and budget delegates then helped narrow the ideas to 20 projects based on their costs and feasibility, Monseguer said.

According to Monseguer, the city will be doing the exercise again and will be holding a feedback session and conducting a survey to get feedback from the community about how the city can improve the process the second time around.

Similar participatory budgeting initiatives have been implemented in the cities of Boston, New York, San Francisco and Chicago.