Is there a pothole on your street? How often does that same street flood in a heavy rain? Do you ever wish there were more opportunities for our youth, or better affordable housing solutions?
Residents of New Orleans are no strangers to wish lists. The city has an infinite number of problems and a very finite number of dollars with which to fix them. Balancing our city budget is no easy task; public pensions, pricey consent decrees and the pressing needs of our communities aren’t easy priorities to reconcile.
Last year, The Committee for a Better New Orleans, a 51-year-old non-profit organization and advocate for civic engagement launched the Big Easy Budget Game, a first-of-its-kind interactive website that lets every day folks have a say in our city budget. We want to know how you would solve the city’s problems.
Residents must balance the budget, choosing how to spend tax dollars based on previous year spending and personal priorities. Players are given the opportunity to learn more about how departments work and how they spend their money, as well as to give additional feedback on specifically how they’d like funds to be spent. What happens if you give a department less funding? What could they do with more?
Resident input into the city budget process is a relatively new opportunity for New Orleanians. Mayor Landrieu’s budget town hall meetings have been a step in the right direction, but still lack the information and education necessary to help residents give informed, meaningful input into how our tax dollars are spent. In a city where 71% of residents have a subprime credit score and 13% of residents are unbanked, we must all work together to ensure that our neighbors are given an equitable opportunity for financial literacy. Informed input is meaningful input; anything less is denying our neighbors a real seat at the table.
CBNO hopes to engage at least 1,000 residents in 2017. We’re getting ready for our first look at this year’s data so far, data that we’ll send to our city leaders as they develop the 2018 city budget. This is your chance to have a say in the decisions that will affect all of us in the years to come: Should we open another prison to house mentally ill inmates? Is the Zika virus a concern for you and your family?
Last year, residents told us that they want to see improvements to our city’s infrastructure, smarter spending on juvenile justice, and better funding for mental health care. This year, we’re asking some new questions. Go ahead Mayor-For-A-Day, tell us what you think.
