Proposal development
Welcome budget delegates!
Thank you for signing up to be a budget delegate! You have one of the most important jobs in participatory budgeting—to develop ideas from the community into well-developed proposals that can be voted on and implemented. As a budget delegate, you will both learn how to develop local policies and provide and serve your community by making Evanston a better place to live, work & study.
You can also watch the orientation recording and download the slides from the City of Evanston PB Orientation session
Eligibility
Anyone 14 and up who lives, works, or studies in Evanston can sign up to be a budget delegate. Delegates under 18 require a sponsor, such as a parent, teacher or staff from a youth serving organization. You do not need any prior experience to be a budget delegate and all are welcome to join so long as you can commit to fulfilling budget delegate responsibilities.
If there are 4 or more delegates that face obstacles to participation, for example high school students, seniors, non-English speakers, these delegates may propose formation of a special demographic affinity committee to address these needs, such as by holding meetings at a different time, location, in another language, etc.
Proposal Development
As a participatory budgeting delegate, you will spend several hours each week from February to August meeting about once or twice a month to develop proposals. You will work together with other budget delegates on your issue committee to develop 2 proposals for the final participatory budgeting ballot. Each committee will elect 2 members to serve as facilitators and attend facilitator training. Along the way, you will get feedback from PB and city staff to help you develop your proposals. After you’ve developed your proposals for the ballot, you will share your proposals with the community at 2 science fair style project expos.
FAQs
How many issue committees are there? What are they?
The PB Steering committee will decide the number and topic of issue committees (hopefully by late January). We expect there will be about 6-7 issue committees in total. Each issue committee will develop proposals on a specific topic such as housing, environment, education, etc., based on the ideas submitted in the idea collection phase, which ends Feb 1.
How many people are on an issue committee?
Anyone eligible to be a budget delegate can sign up and choose an issue committee to work on, so the number of people on each committee will vary. We expect to have about 5 or 6 people on each committee (40 delegates across 6-7 issues committees).
Can I be on multiple issue committees?
No — unfortunately issues committees will often be meeting at the same time, so it’s not possible to participate in multiple committees.
How many proposals will be on the ballot?
The rulebook currently states that there will be a maximum of 12 proposals on the final ballot. However, the steering committee voted to have 7 issue committees and are currently discussing amending the rulebook to have a maximum of 14 proposals on the ballot.
How many proposals will win?
After the vote, each proposal will be ranked, and proposals will be funded in order of rank until the total of funded proposals reaches $3m. For example, if each proposal costs $1m then the top 3 projects would be funded.
How does the issue committee decide which proposals to develop?
The issue committee will decide amongst themselves how to prioritize which proposals to develop.
How will issue committees develop proposals?
The budget delegate facilitator guide gives options to the issue committee facilitators about how to organize your issue committee, for example, issue committees might want to break members into teams to work on each proposal and have a “lead” for each team, but that decision is ultimately up to teach issue committee.