Balancing Act Blog

Balancing Act is proud to join forces with Polco, a community engagement company that unites residents and local governments on important issues. Community engagement is at the core of both companies, making the merger a natural fit. 

Engagement can solve some of the most pressing issues local governments face today. 

Most residents do not understand the inner workings of government. This knowledge gap contributes to polarization and damages public trust. 

Engagement can educate and cultivate harmony with community members who may otherwise be out of the loop on government decisions. 

In Polco’s case, the mission is to involve as many residents as possible in decision-making processes. Balancing Act’s simulations allow officials and community members to experiment with the trade-offs it takes to balance a government budget. Producing better outcomes through engagement and improving government-community connections are at the heart of both solutions. 

“This merger furthers Polco’s mission to bring communities together around their most important topics in a civil and constructive way,” said Polco CEO Nick Mastronardi. “The budgeting process is one of most important parts of the fiscal operational year, and Balancing Act excels at getting input on that process.”

Balancing Act’s simulations and other products are being integrated into Polco’s platform, providing residents the opportunity to see data and interact with it. 

Subscribers can expand their engagement options with Polco’s tools if they choose, adding more quality information into decision-making. For example, Polco products identify community priorities. Users can then construct a Budget Simulation with those priorities in mind. The informed input cultivates a stronger, more active community audience.  

Balancing Act’s brand, service, and staff, including President Chris Adams, will continue providing engagement solutions under the Polco umbrella. 

“Our public engagement tools help local governments establish effective communication with their constituents, no matter the conditions,” Adams said. “Our team is thrilled to join Polco’s in this mission to provide governments with multiple methods of community involvement for increased transparency and trust.” 

Used together, Polco and Balancing Act form an end-to-end participatory decision-making experience. A roadmap of how to use each of these engagement tools throughout the planning cycle will be available soon.

The combined companies support the government decision-making process in multiple ways, including: 

user-based platforms

gold-standard survey research

verified public input

expert consulting

benchmark comparisons to other communities

community data dashboards

simulation-based public engagement tools

Highland Bayou, City of La Marque

By Kate Bernacchi-Sass

For Cesar Garcia, it has always been natural instinct to run toward the fire – not away. The former military member and current City Manager of La Marque, Texas, is fearless in his approach to public engagement, and has become an emerging leader in the field by channeling what he describes as “a mindset.”

Located just south of Houston, the city of La Marque is home to around 19,000 residents. Last year, the city was challenged with distributing $4.1 million in ARPA stimulus funding. With proposed projects totaling nearly $9 million more than they were able to spend, the city turned to its residents for help through Balancing Act’s Budget Simulation tool.

“...BALANCING ACT’S TOOLS PROVIDE ‘THE PROTECTIVE GEAR TO GO INTO [THE FIRE].’”

The tool allowed residents to weigh in on how they would spend the funding. For Garcia, opening the door for community involvement was vital to building a relationship between the city and its constituents.

“I think earning that trust and building that trust with our residents is important, it's vital. It’s something that doesn't often get thought of,” said Garcia.

Even amidst what he described as a difficult political climate, Garcia was adamant about regaining the public’s trust little by little. Part of that journey meant using tools like the Budget Simulation to allow all residents to not only voice their opinions but also see firsthand how difficult the spending tradeoffs can be for public officials.

“A lot of folks now, at least the ones that are vocal, they want to feel like they have a voice in the decision. They want to see and feel and sense that their opinion matters. This program allows that to be the case.”

Highland Bayou, City of La Marque

While there was a risk in opening the floor to so many via the broad accessibility of online engagement, the reward was “so much greater.” Garcia’s perspective of risk-reward is based in something he learned early on from an important person: his grandmother. 

“At this rate, with this method of doing it, no one’s ever going say they didn’t have a voice,” said Garcia.

La Marque’s Budget Simulation provided a comprehensive view of ARPA spending, using the impact feature for future infrastructure costs and educating residents with extensive information and descriptions of projects.

“If they don’t understand [the idea], they won’t support it. The more they understand it, the more they may or may not support it. They still may not support it: but they won’t say they didn’t know.”

For some, community involvement in policymaking can be daunting. For Garcia, it is something that will happen regardless, but Balancing Act’s tools provide “the protective gear to go into [the fire].”

Our company, Balancing Act, is primarily known for providing budget engagement software to local governments that can engage and educate residents about their community’s budget and fiscal decisions. What you may not know is that Balancing Act also provides civic education to thousands of students. Since 2016, Balancing Act has partnered with the Bipartisan Policy Center to offer Americans the opportunity to learn about and interact with the nation’s budget using an intuitive and interactive simulation. And while the simulation is available to all, most users are high school and college students.  

A little over a month ago we updated and relaunched this simulation and there have already been more than 30,000 pageviews with the average user spending close to 30 minutes on the site.

And while we do not know specific assignments that students are given by their teachers, we do know that there are certain topics that students and others are gravitating towards. For example, Health Care receives the most opens, and people appear to be most interested in learning more about two important policy issues:  The Federal Portion of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act subsidies.

There are ample comments submitted on every issue that reflect the entire political spectrum.  

·         Mental health care in our country is a much-needed investment. More funding for this area.

·         Even though some parents do work, most of them are still not earning enough to afford health care for them and their child.  Increase to 17.0%

·         Natural Resources: Increase by $1B. We need food security in this country.

·         National Park: Increase by $4B, park popularity is on the rise.

·         Education: No federal funding, education is a state/local issue

The Bipartisan Policy Center provides comprehensive explanatory information, links, and graphs on both the Revenue and Expense Categories and it can take a while to go through the entire simulation. Or one could just focus on those budget categories that interest you the most.  

We challenge you to create a budget that reflects your values, and if you are so inclined share the simulation with your elected officials and let them know what decisions you would make if you were in their shoes.

The new COVID stimulus bill just signed into law will provide a massive cash infusion to local governments. Coming on the heels of a year of broadly declining revenues and higher expenses, it will be put to good use. But what does it mean for the longer-term well-being of government finance?

The COVID recession shined a bright light on the finances of government. Those fortunate enough to have been able to build a sizable rainy day fund were glad they could soften the blow. Those who were unable found themselves cutting to the bone. The massive infusions of stimulus money to local government through 2024 presents an opportunity for all governments to put their finances on a more sustainable path.

One of the side effects of this year's financial whipsaw is that the public and media are now paying attention to local government budgets at unprecedented levels. While this may be viewed as welcome by some and a nuisance by others, it is a fact and smart governments are jumping on this to engage residents in thinking through tough tradeoffs on both the spending and revenue sides and about long-term health.

A few months before COVID became a household word, The Government Finance Officers Association released an excellent book by Shayne Kavanaugh and Vincent Reitano, Financial Foundations for Thriving Communities. This book is filled with strategies to help strengthen government finances, including on public engagement. Quoting at length:

We have made the case for public engagement above, but perhaps we have not made the case for institutionalizing it. Why not simply engage the public ad hoc when a particularly controversial issue arises? Perhaps the most compelling answer is that high-quality public engagement is not easy, so making engagement a habit will allow best practices in public engagement to become second nature to a local government. Imagine if it was necessary every two or four years to explain why voting is desirable and how to conduct elections: Elections would be a lot more difficult. Making public engagement an institution can remove much of the difficulty that arises if the public is only engaged at irregular intervals and with inconsistent methods. Also, regularly engaging the public helps local government leaders to keep in tune with the public's perspective and to avoid unpleasant surprises.

The recession showed how vulnerable most local governments are, but the American Rescue Act of 2021 creates breathing room for them to chart a course to a more sustainable financial future. While there are many places to begin this path, the heightened visibility to the public makes now a perfect time to institutionalize high-quality budget engagement.

1. Use Scenario Questions Strategically to Inform/Get Feedback from Targeted Audience on Specific Budget Items Scenario questions can engage and focus users on specific budget items.  If using with residents, use scenario questions on items that are familiar to users. If you are using the questions with city council members or staff, use the scenario questions to model different “cut” and revenue options. Here are a few examples. Revenue Each time you register or renew your car in “Generic County” you pay a Vehicle Registration Fee  of $30. Revenue generated by these fees can only be used to support transportation related services such as roads and public transit.

Pose this question with the options below: “Should Generic County's vehicle registration be increased? “

• Eliminate the Vehicle Registration Fee Entirely • Make No Changes to the Current Amount • Increase the Vehicle Registration Fee by $15/year to $45 • Increase the Vehicle Registration Fee by 30/year to $60 Spending Parks - Aquatics Allow residents to be a part of the decision-making process with upcoming spending priorities. For example: “The County is exploring various options to cut non-mandated expenses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What changes should be made to the Aquatics Division?”

• Eliminate the entire Aquatics division within the County Parks. • Close all outdoor pools • Close all indoor pools • Close half of the city’s pools • Close both the outdoor pools and indoor pools • Make no changes to the Aquatics division of Milwaukee County Parks • Increase the maintenance fund for pools, pavilions, community centers, trails and other park amenities (+$500,000)

2. Do you have deficit and want to present specific options to reduce it? Implement Balancing Act’s “Budget Cutting View” that allows stakeholders to easily see the impact of specific decision items on the deficit. This view (seen above)  can be used at any level – program, department, or fund.

Maximize the Customizable Intro Screen to Frame the Conversation Recently, Balancing Act enhanced the software to allow you to customize the entry modal (see below) with specific text, photos, or a video.

Leadership is critical right now. This is an opportunity to upload a video/message from a leader and convey a message.

Use the “i” information tab and More Details to Convey the Information that Residents Need to Know About Your City’s Services

During more typical times, it’s more than adequate to give a broad overview of the department and its primary services. Right now, it may be appropriate to give residents more specific information detailing the department’s role during the pandemic. Use the “More Details” feature to its full capacity. Add videos, photos, info graphics, and so forth to   add visual context to the messages that you are conveying.                                                                                     5. Add depth and additional meaning to +/- options by utilizing our four custom features.

a. Lock specific revenue or expenditure items (but make sure to still explain them)! The item lock feature is used for budget categories such as “Debt Servicing” or “Intergovernmental Transfers” because the amounts are fixed. Lock down entire specific revenue categories if tax increases are out of the question. If you do choose to lock down certain categories, it’s still important to provide context about the tax so use the “i” and “More Details” features b. Alert users of a consequence or a constraint as users make decisions This is a terrific feature that allows you to alert the user of the consequences or a statutory constraint. For example, in Colorado taxes cannot be raised without voter approval. Before users click to increase taxes, they see the following alert. c. Consider putting constraints (floors or ceilings) on certain budget items. The Item Change Boundary allows you (the simulation builder) to place boundaries on budget items. For example, statute/ordinance requires that the reserve cannot fall below a certain amount, feel free to put a floor on that budget item.

Lastly, contact us at Balancing Act. We know this is a challenging time for local governments so please do not hesitate to let us know how can we help. 

As governments across the world mobilize to help prevent the spread of the corona virus, we want to do our part to lessen the need for face-to-face budget hearings and meetings. From now until June 30, 2020, any public entity may use Balancing Act for free. When combined with online platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting or other services, this may satisfy legal requirements for resident participation.

 This special version will include:

One free budget simulation published online

Free access to Meeting Mode, the module that allows you to use the simulation in real time

Free training on how to use the simulation remotely with streaming services

Access to a cohort of other local government leaders dealing with the twin challenges of corona virus and the likelihood of falling revenues.

While the immediate concern of everyone is safety, another reason to use Balancing Act is to help prepare for the economic impact on local governments. With the likelihood of a downturn high, one of the lessons from the Great Recession is to build the capacity to engage the public on financial matters. Research and experience show that there is no better way to do this than budget simulations.

This free offer will provide you with a fully functioning simulation and the support to use it. If you find that you need specialized features to convey the complexity of your situation or need additional help, we are also offering special pricing on upgrades and consulting.

Any public entity—cities, counties, school districts, special districts, state and provincial governments—may avail themselves of this offer.

The COVID-19 outbreak, disrupting the economy and the travel industry, and overwhelming health professionals, is also demonstrating the importance of local and state governments. All over the globe, the response and effectiveness of usually quiet public health and emergency management departments are being scrutinized by the public and the media alike.

Around the water cooler (ok, it’s a kombucha dispenser) at our shared workspace in downtown Denver, I am hearing people asking if those departments at both city and state level have the financial and human resources to adequately handle the COVIC-19 outbreak. Usually, that question is asked by policy nerds like me, but a public health crisis heightens residents’ awareness of the role of government.

Fortunately, I can direct my co-workers and neighbors to learn more about Colorado’s and Denver’s priorities by directing them to the State of Colorado’s and the City of Denver’s budget simulations. Exploring the State of Colorado’s budget I learn that less than 1 percent of the General Fund currently goes towards the Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). When delving into the City of Denver’s budget, I discover that the public health department receives an appropriation of $54M or about 4 percent of the overall budget.

Some residents may want to learn how much they individually contribute to a specific department like public health. The City of Denver provides a taxpayer receipt that allows individuals to find out how much they are paying for specific services. I was surprised to learn, for example, I am only paying about $35.00 toward public health services or about 2 percent of my overall city tax bill. This seems like a small amount to pay for a department that could soon be facing a large number of sick people.

Information from tools like Taxpayer Receipt allows constituents to see where their taxes are going. This information can help them voice their concerns in an informed conversation with state legislators or city councilman about budget priorities. These conversations are important to both citizens and the agencies that serve them, as they develop plans and budgets to deal with everyday problems and crises like COVID-19.

Dane County is committed to ensuring that residents are informed and educated about public policy – specifically the county budget.  “As one of the most important items the county board works on each year, we want to make sure the residents of Dane County understand what we do, and how we make decisions,” said Sharon Corrigan -  Board Chair, Dane County Board of Supervisors (Wisconsin).

Dane County is the fastest-growing county in Wisconsin and home to over 500,000 residents.

In addition to using Balancing Act’s budget simulation for both general operating and capital budgets, the County Board also created a short video to provide a high-level overview of the budget process and ways for residents to get involved. Both the simulation and the video are part of the Board’s inaugural engagement initiative “Engage Dane.”

                        “Supervisor Patrick Miles remarked, “The budget reflects all that the county does for residents, but it can be difficult to get your arms around it,” remarked Supervisor Miles, Chair of the Personnel and Finance Committee.  “We're excited to provide Balancing Act as a tool to increase awareness around the budget process while providing another way for the public to have an input,” he continued.

Balancing Act’s budget simulation is unique because it provides context and constraints, allowing residents to understand the realities that the County Board faces when discussing the budget. “It really allows the community to get in there and to play around with the budget. [Users can] raise revenue, raise funding for different programs, but in order to balance the budget also to cut funding in other areas, so it really is a tool for the community to really get in there and understand the budget process, says” Supervisor Yogesh Chawla. 

Dane County is also the first county to integrate Balancing Act with POLCO.  POLCO provides community engagement surveys and verifies participant residency.

Milwaukee County, Dane County’s neighbor to the north is in its third year of using Balancing Act to communicate the county’s fiscal challenges. This year a record number of Milwaukee County residents submitted budgets and feedback to the county. Click here to learn about Milwaukee County’s results.

Compiled by Brenda Morrison

By Chris Adams, President and co-founder

In 2007 we launched our first online budget simulation for the State of Colorado. We were thrilled by the potential the burgeoning internet held to extend high-quality public engagement to everyone—whether they had the ability/interest in attending face-to-face meetings or they preferred online

In particular, we were interested in budgets, that most fundamental of governmental policy documents. Budgets express the values and priorities of an organization—including the constraints of not spending more than revenue allows and the obligation to steward public money wisely. In the intervening years, I think it is fair to say that we have become obsessed with budget engagement. With our launch of the cloud-based Balancing Act in 2015, we set off on a mission to make budgets understandable to the public and to allow governments to frame up key decisions and tradeoffs for public input. And, we wanted to make this as simple and easy as possible.

Also in 2007, Bang the Table lit the world on fire from Down Under with its groundbreaking EngagementHQ, which seamlessly brought together a suite of tools including forums, idea generation, place-based discussions and more. Since then they have moved at the speed of the internet to continue to refine their platform and increase its value to governments and citizens.

A few weeks ago, Matt Crozier, the CEO of Bang the Table and a fellow Coloradan (by way of points all over the earth,) approached me to see if we might want to work together to multiply the value of our platforms. While both of our companies could be lumped into the categories of “civic tech” or “govtech,” what we each do is really quite different. For several years they have had a nifty budget simulator called Budget Allocator that has served the needs of a number of clients, but they never really felt like it found its place alongside EngagementHQ. We, on the other hand, realize the complexity of budgets and have single-mindedly focused on making the best simulation we can imagine.  

With our distinct focus on budgets, Balancing Act has tried to accommodate the idiosyncratic requirements of those charged with reaching out to the public on budgets. As recommended in a forthcoming report from the Government Finance Officers Association, public engagement on the budget should be able to illustrate tradeoffs, show constraints, provide layers of context and present the big picture of how government is spending precious tax dollars. This focus has taken us down some very particular pathways and approaches to software development that would not be effective in public engagement on other issues.

Furthermore, while the focus of a budget simulator is usually on the educational value and the experience of the user as they go through it, the data is also useful. But how do you present data from a simulation? We spent a year developing an analytics platform to visualize a user’s actions and then to convey that to the client in a flexible format.

Ok, I’ll admit it: I love a good “all-in-one” tool whether it be a Swiss Army Knife, or the kitchen device designed to slice and dice. However, sometimes after purchasing an all-in-one device, you realize the limitations and that the results are not entirely what you expected.

This same premise applies to online public engagement on government budgets.

Many governments effectively utilize online platforms to obtain resident feedback on planning issues, capital investments, visioning, and strategic planning. In the last five years, there has been a proliferation of some terrific online discussion and survey-based software platforms available for these purposes.  

However, both in-person and online conversations about budgets and money are different and often more difficult. Talking to the public about budgets requires more incisive and deliberate solutions because real constraints such as financial, political, and legal must be conveyed to the public. Research   conducted by University of Connecticut local government experts Mark Robbins and Bill Simonsen noted in their study, A Dynamic Method of Citizen Preference Revelation, “Without being faced with the real budget constraints and service needs facing decision-makers, or the cost of their choices, citizens appear to find acceptable any government services that don’t offend them. Little is learned from such efforts.”

Several features make Balancing Act in particular more useful than a more generalized survey or simplified tool. They include:

Giving residents a view into the real-world tradeoffs between taxing and spending, rather than simply focusing on one or the other.

Showing the connection between choices on individual issues and the rest of the budget. Surveys tend to isolate specific issues, which can be useful to understand preferences on an item, but they don’t show their effect on the rest of the budget. Simulations immediately show effects.

Allows for embedded context so that relevant information is available prior to the user deciding on a specific budget item. Graphs, pictures, videos, and other explanatory links are just a click away. 

Budget decisions are some of the most important and complex decisions staff and elected officials make as they directly impact the quality of life for a community. Choose a budget engagement tool that directly reflects the importance and complexity of the budget yet communicates it an easy-to-understand way that educates, elicits constructive feedback, and respects the resident.

Public Financial Publications, Inc. has announced a donation to support the development of a new “teacher mode” for the Balancing Act simulation that will provide features optimizing the tool for classroom learning. The University of Northern Illinois (NIU) will administer the grant on behalf of the Balancing Act Research and Education Consortium. The group includes 25 members from 15 universities plus the Government Finance Officers Association and National League of Cities.

The new features will include a specialized account for teachers that will allow them to create their own simulation or to choose from a variety of editable simulations, the ability to use Meeting Mode in the classroom, the capability to link the simulation with educational survey systems, and a way for students to save their work and return to it at a later time.

According to Kurt Thurmaier, Presidential Engagement Professor and Chair, Department of Public Administration, NIU, “Adding these features to the Balancing Act simulation can greatly enhance the ability of budgeting and financial management faculty to build student competencies by creating difficult and challenging local, state, and federal budgeting scenarios that require theory and practice connections.”

Chris Adams, President of Balancing Act, said, “The original purpose of our online simulation was educational—to provide users of any age with the opportunity to experience the real and difficult tradeoffs that go into public budgeting. Even before ‘teacher mode’ tens of thousands of students have used Balancing Act to connect the dots between the taxes citizens pay and government expenditures. We see this as civics education.”

The next phase of the Consortium’s work will include expanding access to features that support using Balancing Act to conduct scientifically valid research. This builds on and expands the ongoing work that began two years ago led by Sven Steinmo of the University of Colorado, John D’Attoma, University of Exeter and Kim-Lee Tuxhorn of the University of Calgary. This exciting initiative will pave the way for local governments to combine the public engagement and educational benefits of Balancing Act with a method to get valid, representative results.  

If your community is looking for a way to convey transparency, accountability, and public input but doesn’t have the time to introduce and implement complex budget software, don’t let the “i” issue stop you from performing these important functions.

We’ve come to expect the “i” question from prospective clients: “How many months will it take us to implement Balancing Act? Will we need special training?”

Our answer is simple: Generally, it takes somewhere between 8 and 24 hours of staff time to build your simulation, and while we offer guided setup, most only want a one-hour onboarding session. This is one feature that delineates Balancing Act from other apps. When we say Balancing Act is easy to set-up and implement, it is true. Here is a recent example.

April 16, 2019:   Bryce Ward, Mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough Alaska (FNSB) contacted Balancing Act about the possibility of using Balancing Act for the current budget debate occurring within the Borough’s elected Assembly.

April 17, 2019:  Mayor Ward convened FNSB’s senior leadership for a one-hour demo of Balancing Act.

April 19, 2019: One hour on-boarding session with Borough Chief of Staff Jim Williams

April 26, 2019: FNSB Balancing Act simulation and Taxpayer Receipt launched to residents.

Here’s how Lanien Livingston, Public Information Officer described the whole process from start to finish:

“The FNSB had been looking for a while for *something* that would help us with public engagement specifically targeting our budget process. Mayor Ward found “A Balancing Act” and when he pitched the idea to our executive team, we were impressed with how simple the platform looked and how easy it would be to engage our constituents with the budgeting process. We viewed the demo on April 17th and our team were immediately all in agreement that THIS would work for us and for our community! There was a lot of behind the scenes work that went into gathering the information to put on Balancing Act, however, the process was relatively simple and in seven business days, the parts and pieces all came together for the launch! We are thrilled to be the FIRST community in Alaska to use “A Balancing Act”! We hope that through this platform, we will be able to inform, engage and encourage the conversation about the borough budget so that our elected officials can make the best decisions for our community using their feedback.”

So take it from some hardy Alaskans: don’t be afraid of the “i” word. 

We have been building online budget simulation software since 2007. During this time we’ve learned a great deal about how to support the budget engagement goals of local government and how to provide a valuable user experience for residents.

Over the years, we’ve found that in most cases, our local government clients fall into one of two camps. The first is motivated by wanting residents to have an accessible way to learn about the budget, see the connection between revenue and spending, and then to get a general sense of whether items should be increased or decreased. Realizing that budgets are complicated, the goal is to provide something accessible, informative and simple. For these types of users, our plus/minus questions, with the option to add explanatory text, is all that is needed. An added benefit is that this type of simulation is very easy for staff to create.

The second type of client seeks to share with residents more of the constraints and tradeoffs that go into creating a budget. While still at a high level, the goal of this type of engagement includes conveying consequences for certain decisions (e.g. cuts to libraries will mean they are open fewer hours) or that certain actions are not allowed (e.g. cutting below safe minimums, such as for police or fire.) Some want to show linkages between a desired new service, such as improved road maintenance, and a specific revenue source. To accommodate these clients, we have been steadily adding features that require residents to observe the same constraints as government when making a budget.

Alan Ehrenhalt suggests in his column “Surly Citizens” (Governing Magazine, November 2018) that too much public engagement can thwart necessary public projects. Citing two examples, Boston’s Big Dig and Austin’s CodeNext (a revision of Austin’s zoning code), Ehrenhalt says that too many meetings and public involvement made it difficult for leaders to find consensus and choose a course of action. Ehrenhalt believes that the solution to this problem is two-pronged: voters need to elect “pragmatic” individuals and to give them “some leeway to do the right thing and explain their decisions to the public, i.e. representative government.”

We all agree that voters need to take their role in representative democracy seriously. No one would argue that point.  However, Ehrenhalt suggests, that townhall meeting are engrained in American culture perhaps we should take a harder look at the purpose and efficacy of public meetings. His column prompted me to think that there are at least three non-conventional, positive outcomes that result from public engagement that staff and officeholders should consider.

1. People come to public only meetings to complain about certain issue that usually impacts them. Yes, that’s true. However, sometimes new leaders emerge from these types of events and these individuals turn into very effective civic leaders. They become involved with local government because they want change. Some might call it the “put up or shut up” form of leadership development but it is foundational to representative government.

Women often emerge from this type of scenario as candidates for public office. A recent column in the New York Times Opinion Page “What Path Takes You to Congress” quoted Kelly Dittmar from the Rutgers University Center for American Woman and Politics who said, “women are more likely to run because they encounter something in their engagement with the political system that angers them or frustrates them enough” (Chinoy and Ma, NYT, 1/27/2019).

2. Public meetings take up lots of time and energy, and rarely produce anything of “substance.” This depends on how “substance” is defined. If your definition of substance is an innovative policy solution to a complex problem to emerges from a 60-minute public meeting than that’s true: the meeting may not be “substantive.” However, substance could also be defined as constructive facetime with constituents. Officeholders should view public meetings as a meaningful way to connect with their constituents. These meetings turn unproductive under two circumstances: a lack of planning and poor meeting design; and an elected official that has not invested in or cultivated any authentic constituent interaction.

3. Too many people impede the possibility of coming to consensus. Yes, the example of Austin’s CodeNext is an example of when things go wrong, but there are also plenty of examples of when public engagement goes right. Organizations such as the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) and many private practitioners can cite multiple examples of successful public engagement.

In my home state of Colorado, voters in 80 cities considered 150 measures, many of which were related to taxes and bonds. Some were approved by the voters, but others were rejected. For example, one city put forth a 1 percent sales tax increase for road repairs and maintenance. It was defeated 53.19 percent to 46.09 percent. Was it defeated because there was also a statewide transportation sales tax measure on the ballot that would raise state sales tax from 2.9 percent to 3.52 percent? Or was there something else on the voters’ minds?

The recent elections showed how tools like Balancing Act can help voters understand complex ballot issues. If your tax measure was defeated, it’s not too soon to begin planning for 2020. And as you think about what to do differently next time, Balancing Act’s Budget Simulation should be an integral part of your strategy going forward.

Here is a brief 5 point plan to get you started.

Step 1. Analyze the election results to understand any trends. Were there certain neighborhoods that overwhelmingly voted no?  Voted yes?  Was there an undervote? If so, was it significant?

Step 2. Evaluate your campaign. Ask local reporters and community leaders their opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign. Some of the feedback will be useful, and your willingness to ask and listen will be appreciated.  

Step 3. Develop an 18-month engagement and outreach plan to reach both current supporters and opponents. Start this plan with the end in mind: voter approval of a tax measure in 2020.

Step 4. Create a Balancing Act budget simulation that demonstrates the consequences of the voters’ choice; the real-life budget constraints and tough decisions that will face staff and elected leaders in the upcoming year. The simulation may be used to prioritize what projects will be accomplished and which ones will be deferred given the funding constraints.

Step 5. As information is obtained from residents, add an additional Balancing Act budget simulation into your engagement plan that directly reflects the ideas that you hear from your residents so that they know that you heard them. This is a critical piece of effective public engagement and one that is often intentionally or unintentionally forgotten. The simulation allows for plenty of educational opportunities. Add videos, charts/graphs, photos that will help make the case for why certain ideas are more feasible than others.

While losing a ballot measure is disappointing, it justifies a consistent investment in engaging residents on the budget and fiscal issues. It’s worth the effort.

You cannot escape – they are everywhere:  Ads for candidates and ballot issues are clogging all media channels trying to persuade you to support their candidate or issue.  Many of these ads reference issues related to money and taxes.

There are several issues on the Colorado Ballot that impact the budget.

And while there are many resources available to guide your decisions at the ballot, we encourage you to add Balancing Act’s Colorado Election Version to your decision making process.  

Here are a few helpful tips to consider when using Balancing Act’s Election Version:  

Fiscal Responsibility – Unlike the federal budget, the Colorado Legislature is required to balance the state budget every year. Yep, every year. The entire Colorado state budget is approximately $30 billion dollar. That number includes ALL the monies that come into the state such as federal funds that are designated for certain projects or fees such as tuition that a student pays to attend one of Colorado’s universities.

You will notice that the balance bar at the top of the simulation does not change if you select “Yes, show impacts” on Amendment 73 or Proposition 110. This is because these measures are what analysts refer to as “revenue neutral” or in simpler terms pay for themselves because there is new revenue to pay for the proposed expenditures.

However, the balance bar does change if you select “Yes, show impact” on Proposition 109. This measure does not raise taxes but directs the state to borrow up to $3.5 billion to fund 66 specific highway projects. The legislature would have to reprioritize money from programs in the current budget to pay for these transportation bonds.

By Thomas I. Miller

Asking what your typical resident thinks about any policy or program is no different than asking a typical customer what they think about a new pair of shoes (assuming most customers are unlikely to know where the shoes came from, how they were made or what materials comprise them). Both shoe purchaser and citizen of local government know what they value. They are experts in what they think – even if they are not clear about why they think it. Those selling shoes and those delivering municipal services cannot afford to ignore what their customers think, whatever the stimulus for those opinions.

People Report on What They Know

However, even understanding that residents report more on what they feel than what they know, local government officials want to believe that the people responding to their surveys do know something. Fortunately, there is clear evidence to support that belief. The most common proof that resident perspectives, as reported in surveys, actually link to reality are connections to community circumstances that seem driven by extraordinary news about striking events. We have evidence that a local scandal knocks residents’ opinions about the reputation of their own locale, that murders around the time of a survey compromise ratings of police services and that snow removal ratings get buried under impossibly prolific one time snow storms.

Public Opinions of Economic Future During the Great Recession

An analysis by National Research Center, Inc. (NRC) researchers of tens of thousands of individual survey respondents across the country over many years reveals that residents also reliably are aware of the important and less dramatic circumstances that change cumulatively.

We examined the trend in residents’ opinions about their own economic future as they related to the U.S. unemployment rate leading up to and during the Great Recession. As shown by the trends in the graph of the two assessments, we found a dramatically strong negative relationship between what residents expected the economy’s impact to be on their income and this traditional measure of U.S. economic health.

Residents had a brighter perspective about the future when the unemployment rate was lower and a dimmer view when the unemployment rate rose.

Optimism about Personal Economic Future from The National Citizen Survey (The NCS) Mirrors Unemployment Rates

The National Citizen Survey (The NCS) line in blue is the average of the sum of the “very positive” and “positive” responses of residents to the question: “What impact, if any, do you think the economy will have on your family income in the next 6 months?” Each data point represents the average of the three prior quarters. The number of respondents to the survey question averaged around 4,000 each quarter. The correlation was -.88.

The National Citizen Survey Results Prove Meaningful

The good news in a bad economy is that The National Citizen Survey results give meaningful resident perspectives that can be trusted by local government managers. Not only are resident opinions unsurprisingly affected by shocks to the service delivery system (like snow storms, scandals and murders), but residents also are keenly aware of, and reliably reflect in The NCS, long term trends that influence their lives. Such a finding bodes well for the kind of important incremental changes managers may make that residents will notice and report in more positive ratings of their community’s quality of life over time.

Even better, opinions about local government service delivery are protected from economic fluctuations that many suspect would color opinions about everything; the quarter-by-quarter relationship between the survey question about household economic expectations and evaluations of overall service quality was virtually zero.

That means the real world impacts ratings that are related to those conditions (like crime and police, scandal and reputation, snow and snow removal). But unrelated topics (for example, service quality to scandal) do not impact each other’s ratings.

Thomas I Miller, Ph.D., is President and CEO of National Research Center, Inc. He has worked in state and local government and as a consultant to government for more than twenty years. He has co-authored, Citizen Surveys: How to do them, how to use them, what they mean, published in 2000 by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), Washington, D.C. and Citizen Surveys for Local Government: A comprehensive guide to making them matter, published in 2009 by ICMA.