CITY OF MENLO PARK: YOUR CITY/YOUR DECISION
The Problem
After years of trimming the City’s budget, in the spring of 2005, the City of Menlo Park forecast a $2.9 million gap between revenues and expenditures in the General Fund for fiscal year 2006-2007. Difficult choices regarding service reductions, revenue increases, or alternate ways of providing services, lay ahead. The City required a sustainable solution, but wanted to garner community input and support.
What We Did
The City of Menlo Park enlisted Community Focus to solicit and gather community input and to educate residents about the important budget issues at stake. The resulting process was called Your City/Your Decision.
There were two phases to this community engagement process. Phase I gathered information about the community’s priorities through a survey. Each household and business received the survey with information about City services, their current net costs, the potential impact of reduced net costs, and revenue options. Respondents were asked to give input on their priorities by using net cost reductions and/or revenue increases (including fee increases and taxes) to balance the budget. From this data, the City staff developed a list of possible budget-balancing strategies (e.g., various levels of net cost reductions, alternative ways to provide a service, revenue increases, etc.) to address the community’s priorities. In Phase II the City presented these strategies at community workshops. Residents were arranged in small groups simulating what a City Council might experience; deliberating over the possible strategies, voting for or against each strategy and finishing with a balanced budget solution.
Results/Outcomes:
- Successful community outreach resulted in the City receiving over 1,600
responses to the Phase I survey
- An estimated 225 residents participated
in Phase II community workshops
- 93% of the workshop groups chose to
balance the budget using a combination of net cost reductions and
taxes; 7% chose to balance the budget through net cost reductions
only
- On average, workshop participants “raised” $1,573,000
through net cost reductions, and $1,314,000 through increased taxes
to erase the $2.9 million dollar deficit
- The process developed community
support and understanding for the difficult decisions which may
be necessary