By Aaron Mudd, CivicLex · June 3, 2026 ✍️ Reader's Note: This article is part of CivicLex's ongoing Civic Spotlight series, where we explore how communities are tackling local challenges and what we can learn from them. Curious about CivicLex's solutions journalism? We want to hear from you! S end an email to [email protected] or respond to the one-question survey at the end of this article. For years, residents with the African American Roundtable in Milwaukee advocated for more resident-control of city budget dollars. That campaign won a major breakthrough in 2025 with the Milwaukee Common Council voting to approve $600,000 for that goal. Markasa Tucker-Harris, executive director of the African American Roundtable, said that work is continuing this year. A resident-led city committee meets regularly, and it's currently working to develop funding criteria for community priorities. Potential projects could include improving community access to fresh and healthy food, better lighting, or mobile libraries, but they can't involve allocating more money to police, Tucker-Harris said. "We're ensuring and following this money, that this implementation is going to help," Tucker-Harris said, adding the project is aiming to move forward this summer. Advocates of this concept, called participatory budgeting, point to Milwaukee and the African American Roundtable's work as a success story, and there have been wins in other parts of the country, too. Through a community-led process, participatory budgeting aims to bring residents together to propose, develop and vote for their own funding priorities – whether that's playground and park upgrades or community safety investments. As Lexington officials continue to finalize the city's budget ahead of expected Council votes in early June, CivicLex wanted to look at what other communities are trying around the country as part of our ongoing work to spotlight solutions to social problems. For insights into where participatory budgeting has worked, where it hasn't and why, we spoke with Rahel Mekdim Teka and Anita dos Santos of the New York-based Participatory Budgeting Project. CivicLex also spoke to Phoebe Bachman, who leads Philadelphia's People's Budget Office. 🎤 Want to engage with Lexington's budget process?Reach out to your Councilmember with thoughts, questions, or concerns. You can also speak in-person during public comment sessions at Council Work Sessions or Council meetings during the budget process. Find calendar dates for those here. Community-led decision making The easiest way to think about participatory budgeting is as "a democratic process where people decide together how to spend part of a public budget," explains Anita dos Santos, the Participatory Budgeting Project's advocacy manager. PB, as advocates often abbreviate it, goes beyond simply conducting a survey or gathering public input for the real decision makers to either incorporate or ignore. Advocates say participatory budgeting places everyday residents in the driver's seat: They decide how a pot of public money gets spent and their decisions are definitive. "It's really the people who design the process," dos Santos said. "They generate the ideas themselves, they develop the ideas, and then they get to vote on the ideas, and what they vote on goes." Teka, acting co-executive director of the Participatory Budgeting Project, describes participatory budgeting as "community-led decision making". "We think of community-led decision making as the practice, or like, the way that you put into action the idea that those most impacted by a decision should be central to making that decision." An important part of PB, advocates say, is that there's real money devoted to it, and the money is committed upfront. If residents know they've been given charge over say, $1 million, they know their decisions will make an impact. "That's a really important component for trust building," dos Santos said. "There is like an assurance that this is really going to be impactful. It's going to become concrete, because we know that the money is committed ahead of time." Participatory budgeting often looks different from community-to-community, but a simple framework works like this: Designing the process Generating ideas Developing ideas Voting Evaluation Residents can submit an idea for a project or vote to fund one once it's been developed. They can also go more in-depth by serving on a steering committee. Steering committees bring together a representative cross-section of the community to design the participatory budgeting process. Steering committees decide things like: Who gets to vote What kind of ideas are eligible to be on the ballot Who gets to submit an idea Once ideas are submitted, proposal developers come together to vet, research, and develop those ideas into concrete proposals for people to vote on. This is often the most labor-intensive part of the process. According to Teka, good PB work often follows a set of best practices that ensure participation goes beyond including the "usual suspects" of people who have the time and means to fully engage. That includes paying more-involved participants for their time, scheduling meetings with worker and family-needs in mind, and making sure that food and childcare is available during meetings. What has Lexington tried? The closest Lexington has come to piloting participatory budgeting came during the COVID-era, when the local government received $121 million in relief money through the American Rescue Plan Act, passed in March of 2021. Mayor Linda Gorton made initial funding decisions through her Fiscal Year 2021 budget, but later the Urban County Council launched a process to gather public input on how the funds should be spent. One survey allowed residents to submit projects directly, and with that input, Council vetted the projects and decided which ones should be adopted. Many of the submitted projects made up a majority of the ARPA projects that were funded. Mostly, they focused on housing, social services, and parks. CivicLex previously compiled a searchable database of Lexington's ARPA projects, which you can find here. “It was a real intentional effort to get community input in regards to the best way to use those funds to benefit the community," At-Large Councilmember James Brown said of the effort. Asked about the possibility of Lexington adopting a participatory budgeting process on a more permanent basis, Brown said: "I think it is possible to an extent." He noted that it would need to be a set allocation with parameters around it "Most importantly, I think we just have to set expectations," Brown said. "There are some limits and some requirements to fund it and how that money is allocated and approved." "That is something that we can explore," he added. "If there’s a public community desire to do so." What have other cities tried? First tried in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989, participatory budgeting has since spread to multiple cities across the U.S. and Canada. Its origins in the U.S. date to 2009, which is why Teka describes participatory budgeting as being in its "adolescent phase". "We needed a lot of political will to start it off, because it was quite experimental," Teka said. "We had a lot of examples of how strong and well it works internationally, in South America and in Europe." Since then, a clearer picture is emerging of where participatory budgeting initiatives have worked and where they've run into challenges. Some places across the country include: Central Falls, RI – Residents in this small city of about 22,000 people have adopted and developed participatory budgeting processes over time, dos Santos said. That includes local schools and for spending Covid relief money from the federal government. Chicago, IL – The first city in the U.S. to try participatory budgeting. Cleveland, OH – Residents advocated for participatory budgeting to allocate federal pandemic relief dollars, but they struggled to gain support from local leaders. Later, advocates were successful in getting a city-wide PB onto the ballot for local voters to weigh in on. The ballot initiative narrowly failed, Teka said. Cleveland PB advocates are moving ahead with a neighborhood-based project funded by private dollars, Teka said. Des Moines, IA – Where residents are currently advocating for participatory budgeting. Teka noted that city staff there have been doing evidence-based research to explore the concept. Durham, NC – After residents voted last fall on how to spend $2.4 million, the city recently announced six winning projects. They include upgrades at local parks, art installations, and improvements to neighborhood security, among others. Grand Rapids, MI – Where the $2 million was set aside for participatory budgeting. Los Angeles, CA. – As part of the city's efforts to address equity and institutional racism, the City of Los Angeles launched its first participatory budgeting pilot program to distribute roughly $8.5 million across nine communities, called REPAIR zones. New York, NY – City Council members explored participatory budgeting in their individual districts before it later expanded to a city-wide process. Phoenix, AZ – Local schools tried participatory budgeting before the district as a whole ran its own PB process involving parents, faculty, staff, and students. The project centered on addressing community safety, Teka said. Seattle, WA – The City of Seattle has earmarked roughly $27 million to address public safety and community needs. Challenges and criticisms Participatory budgeting aspires to lofty goals, but it's not without its challenges and limitations, as some budget justice advocates have experienced first-hand. Phoebe Bachman is an artist, facilitator, curator, and activist based in South Philadelphia. In 2021, she founded the People's Budget Office. A project of Mural Arts Philadelphia, the People's Budget Office teaches local residents about how the city's budget works and helps them advocate for priorities they want to see funded. It does this through advanced and budget-basics workshops to demystify Philly's finances. It also works with local artists to create a visual language for the city's budget. One of Bachman's critiques of participatory budgeting is that it needs real buy-in and investment from local leaders. A few years ago, Philadelphia considered a participatory budgeting pilot with $1 million, Bachman said. She compared that amount to places like Paris, France, which earmarks 5% of its capital budget for participatory budgeting, giving residents control over 100 million euros a year. This translates to more than $116 million in U.S. dollars. While Bachman called a $1 million investment in participatory budgeting "useful," she openly wondered whether it truly went far enough. "In a budget that is closer to $7 billion dollars – and that's just our general fund – like, what does that million dollars actually mean?" Bachman asked. Philadelphia's participatory budgeting project ultimately fizzled out, Bachman said. A steering committee determined a $1 million investment was not enough for a successful project, Bachman said. It would also require dedicated staff tasked with engaging residents and budget education so that they could meaningfully contribute. Instead of going that route, the city opted to create neighborhood focus groups and incorporate members' feedback into the budget-making process, Bachman said. Bachman still describes herself as an advocate for participatory budgeting, but she understands that "it has its limitations." Rahel Teka, acting co-executive director of the Participatory Budgeting Project, acknowledges that PB projects can sometimes fall short of their goals. One advantage of the movement's foothold in the U.S. is that local initiatives can learn from each other and adapt, Teka said. Teka pointed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the African American Roundtable's work as an example of the movement's resilience and staying power. "All of these different kind of places and spaces, that are quite different from each other, are talking to each other and learning from each other," Teka said. View in feeds The post Participatory budgeting promises residents direct control over public money. Could it work in Lexington? appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less