Community Budget Dialogues / Public Input Process

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

Faced with an unprecedented projected shortfall of more than $400 million in summer 2008—a deficit which grew to more than $650 million by November 2008—both the County government and schools (FCPS) staff designed and implemented a robust public input process, referred to as “Community Dialogues,” to identify community priorities and to solicit suggestions and recommendations from the public and employees to assist in developing the necessary criteria in closing the gap and achieving a balanced budget that would be both acceptable and sustainable to the public. The prolonged recession adversely affected home values in 2009, resulting in another significant projected shortfall of $315.6 million for the fiscal year 2011 for the County and a projected $176 million shortfall for the FCPS. Consequently, both the county and the schools staff continued the same approach to garner citizen feedback and involvement to identify a strategic framework for closing the budget gap. This effective strategy, aimed at increasing citizen involvement and obtaining their ideas, centered on two avenues: facilitating small group discussions of residents to achieve consensus of priorities and recommendations; and obtaining additional suggestions, recommendations, and feedback through online web forms and budget hotlines. As a result, the Community Dialogue Initiative proved invaluable in helping County decision makers overcome the tremendous shortfall in the 2010 fiscal year and helped provide the County Executive with clear direction to develop a balanced budget proposal for the 2011 fiscal year.