The People’s Budgeting Act is a forward-thinking legislative proposal that reimagines the local budget process as a tool for equity, transparency, and participatory democracy.
This initiative aims to address longstanding inequities in how public resources are allocated particularly in historically disinvested communities by giving residents meaningful power to track and shape government spending and helping to strengthen public trust.
This legislation addresses the persistent racial and geographic disparities in public funding across New York City, where opaque budgeting practices and limited community input have left certain neighborhoods underfunded in areas such as parks, sanitation, arts, and infrastructure. Without data transparency or meaningful engagement, residents in marginalized districts are excluded from decisions that shape their daily lives.
By integrating technology and civic engagement, this initiative shifts budgeting from a top-down to a bottom-up model, making equity and accountability core principles. It provides residents—especially those from historically disinvested communities—with the tools and data needed to hold government accountable and co-create fairer fiscal outcomes, offering a blueprint for transformative civic engagement and fiscal justice.
The People’s Budgeting Act tackles these systemic gaps through four interconnected policy components:
Mandated Equity Reports: All city agencies must produce annual equity audits of their spending broken down by race, income, gender, and geography
People’s Budget Portal: A real-time, public-facing digital dashboard will allow residents to view and analyze city spending in their communities.
Equity-centered budget scoring: A process that evaluates how proposed and enacted city spending aligns with racial, economic, and geographic equity goals.
Impact or how it will be measured:
Impact will be measured using both quantitative data and community-informed metrics:
Budget Equity Audits: Agencies will submit disaggregated data on spending by race, income, gender, and geography. These audits will reveal disparities in resource allocation over time and serve as a baseline for evaluating improvement.
People’s Budget Portal: The dashboard will track in real time how funding flows align with key equity indicators. User analytics will measure public engagement.
Community Satisfaction Surveys & Civic Participation Rates: Post-implementation surveys and increased resident participation in budgeting processes will reflect impact at the neighborhood level.
Project Delivery Metrics: Tracking the execution and success rates of community-selected projects will demonstrate how well participatory budgeting aligns with local priorities.