Participatory Budgeting & Citizens' Assemblies

The Problem

Denver’s annual budget exceeds $1.6 billion. Residents have almost no say in how it’s spent. City Council holds public hearings that few attend, and the mayor’s office drives priorities. The result: budgets reflect the interests of developers, lobbyists, and politically connected groups - not ordinary Denver residents.

Meanwhile, trust in local government is low and declining. People feel, correctly, that their voice doesn’t matter. Voter turnout in Denver’s 2023 municipal election was 38% (Denver Elections Division). That is better than some years, but it still means 62% of registered voters stayed home. The system is technically democratic but functionally unresponsive.

What Denver Currently Does

Denver has a Neighborhood Engagement division and holds public hearings on the budget, but these are largely performative. The budget is drafted by the mayor’s office, presented to council, and public comment periods are limited. Denver has never experimented with participatory budgeting at any scale. Some Denver neighborhoods have informal priority-setting through Registered Neighborhood Organizations (RNOs), but these have no binding authority over budget allocation and tend to be dominated by homeowners and older, wealthier residents.

The contrast with Mike Johnston’s approach is instructive: major decisions like the Flock Safety surveillance contract were pushed through without meaningful public engagement. The democratic deficit is not abstract; it is how the city operates on a routine basis.

Our Solution

1. Participatory Budgeting (PB)

Pioneered in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989 and now used in over 7,000 cities worldwide. Residents directly decide how public money is spent.

Denver’s PB Program:

• 10% of the city’s capital budget (~$100-150M/year) is allocated through participatory budgeting
• Every Denver resident 14+ can participate (including non-citizens - you don’t need to be a voter to have a say in your neighborhood)
• Neighborhood assemblies propose projects: parks, street improvements, community centers, safety infrastructure, environmental remediation
• Resident vote selects winning projects - online + in-person, with multilingual ballots
• Budget delegates (elected from neighborhoods) develop proposals into implementable projects with city staff support

Process (annual cycle):

1. Idea collection (2 months): Neighborhood assemblies generate proposals
2. Development (3 months): Budget delegates work with city engineers and planners to develop proposals into costed, feasible projects
3. Exhibition (1 month): All proposals displayed publicly, online and at community locations
4. Vote (2 weeks): All residents vote on final projects
5. Implementation (ongoing): City implements winning projects with public tracking dashboard

2. Citizens’ Assemblies

Adapted from Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly model, which resolved the country’s most contentious issues (abortion, marriage equality, climate) through democratic deliberation rather than partisan warfare.

How it works:

• Randomly selected residents (like jury duty, but for policy)
• Demographically representative: assembly mirrors Denver’s population by age, race, income, neighborhood, gender
• Professional facilitation: independent facilitators, not politicians
• Expert testimony: assembly hears from researchers, affected communities, practitioners
• Deliberation: weeks of structured discussion, learning, and debate
• Recommendations: assembly produces detailed policy recommendations that city council must publicly respond to (accept, modify with explanation, or reject with explanation)

Denver Citizens’ Assembly topics (proposed first 3 years):

• Year 1: Housing affordability and homelessness
• Year 2: Police and public safety
• Year 3: Climate and environmental justice

The Evidence: This Works

Participatory Budgeting

City	Scale	Result
Porto Alegre, Brazil	Pioneered PB in 1989, 50,000+ participants/year	Infant mortality dropped 50%. Water access reached 98%. Dramatic improvements in low-income neighborhoods. Became model for the world.
Paris, France	€500M allocated through PB (2014-2020), 5% of total budget	300+ projects completed. 10% of residents participate annually. Projects include parks, bike lanes, green spaces, community gardens.
Helsinki, Finland	€8.8M PB budget (growing annually)	High participation, innovative proposals, increased trust in government
New York City	Largest PB program in US. $40M+/year across 30+ districts.	100,000+ residents participate. Projects in every borough. Youth participation especially high.
Madrid, Spain	€100M PB budget via “Decide Madrid” digital platform	400,000+ online participants. Proposals include social housing, green infrastructure, public transit.

Consistent findings across all PB programs:

• Money flows to previously neglected neighborhoods
• Infrastructure improves faster in low-income areas
• Civic engagement increases (especially among youth, immigrants, and low-income residents)
• Trust in government increases measurably
• Spending is more efficient (residents know what their neighborhoods need)

Citizens’ Assemblies

Country	Issue	Result
Ireland	Abortion legalization (2016-2017)	Citizens’ Assembly recommended legalization → referendum passed with 66% support. Resolved decades-long deadlock.
Ireland	Marriage equality (2013-2014)	Constitutional Convention (similar model) recommended → referendum passed with 62% support.
France	Climate policy (2019-2020)	150 randomly selected citizens produced 149 climate recommendations. Several became law.
UK	Climate policy (2020)	Climate Assembly UK produced detailed recommendations on reaching net zero.
Belgium	Permanent citizens’ assembly in German-speaking community	Ongoing deliberative body that regularly produces policy recommendations.

Why random selection works better than elections:

• Elected officials are disproportionately wealthy, male, white, and older than their constituents
• Random selection produces assemblies that actually look like the population
• Participants don’t owe donors or lobbyists anything
• Deliberation (hearing evidence, discussing with peers) produces better-informed decisions than campaign soundbites

How We Pay For It

• Participatory budgeting administration: $2-3M/year (0.15% of the budget being allocated)
• Citizens’ assemblies: $1-2M per assembly (participant stipends, facilitation, expert testimony, venue)
• Total: $4-5M/year for dramatically improved democratic participation

This is a rounding error in a $1.6B budget - and the evidence shows PB produces more efficient spending than bureaucratic allocation.

Frequently Asked Questions

“Ordinary people can’t make budget decisions.” They make them better than you’d expect. Porto Alegre’s PB program produced more equitable infrastructure than decades of expert-driven budgeting. And citizens’ assemblies consistently produce well-reasoned, evidence-based recommendations - because participants actually listen to evidence, unlike most politicians.

“This will slow down government.” The PB cycle runs parallel to the regular budget process. Citizens’ assemblies are convened for specific questions on specific timelines. Neither replaces existing governance - they supplement it with democratic legitimacy.

“What about people who don’t participate?” More people participate in PB than vote in municipal elections. And the random selection for citizens’ assemblies ensures representation even without self-selection. These tools reach people that elections don’t.

“Won’t this be captured by special interests?” Harder to capture than elections. PB uses one-person-one-vote (no campaign donations). Citizens’ assemblies use random selection (no lobbying). Both are structurally more resistant to special interest capture than the current system.

“What prevents wealthy neighborhoods from dominating the process?” PB programs that work use equity-weighted allocation: districts with higher poverty rates receive larger per-capita allocations. Outreach to underrepresented communities is built into the process. NYC’s PB program has higher participation rates among low-income residents and people of color than standard elections. The random selection for citizens’ assemblies is stratified by demographics, guaranteeing representation.

References

• Denver Elections Division. (2023). Municipal election turnout data. (38% turnout.)
• City of Denver Annual Budget. (2024). Total budget and capital budget figures.
• Sintomer, Y., et al. (2012). “Participatory Budgeting Worldwide.” Study for the German Federal Agency for Civic Education. (7,000+ cities data.)
• Cabannes, Y. (2004). “Participatory budgeting: a significant contribution to participatory democracy.” Environment and Urbanization. (Porto Alegre outcomes.)
• PBNYC (Participatory Budgeting New York City). Annual reports and participation data.
• Farrell, D., et al. (2019). “Deliberative Mini-Publics: Core Design Features.” Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. (Citizens’ assembly design.)
• Irish Citizens’ Assembly. Reports on the Eighth Amendment (2017) and Marriage Equality (2014).