Letting the Citizens Help Run the Store.

• Author: Barrett, Katherine

The annual budget is typically the strongest statement of the local agency's priorities for the community," according to the Institute for Local Government. "As such, it is important that the community is involved in the development of this document."

The logic behind this statement has proven itself valid over the 30-or-so years that we've been covering state and local budgets. Of course, when citizens feel that their elected officials are paying attention to their priorities, they're more inclined to express their appreciation at the ballot box.

"When people are allowed to express their preferences, they come away from the process knowing they were involved in the decisions, even if they're only involved in an advisory capacity for the selectman or the city councils," said Michael Pagano, executive director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois. "Absent the opportunity to be involved, governments become distant from the needs of the residents."

"When it comes time to make hard choices in the budget, governments that have engaged the citizens are most likely to have the trust of the public and have the faith that the government is working in their best interest," said Christiana K. McFarland, research director at the National League of Cities.

Take the City of Auburn, Alabama, for example (population 66,000). After years of annual surveys, it is now conducting one every two years, to provide data in tandem with the community's biennial budget. In 2018, the year of the last survey, it was completed by more than 800 residents, a number that yields a 95 percent chance of accuracy, statistically.

But just gathering the surveys is only the first step. Auburn, like other localities that successfully use citizen surveys, takes the results into account and then acts to address respondents' input. For example, downtown parking has been identified as an issue in citizen surveys over time, and as a result, the government has instituted a number of initiatives to improve the situation, including building a new parking lot, which is in walking distance from the heart of downtown. It has also acquired additional downtown property to build an upcoming parking deck.

Similarly, survey results indicating that there was disappointment in the "visibility of police in neighborhoods" led Auburn to free up money in its budget to authorize new police positions, intended to help improve the sense of safety among residents.

While...