Would You Like a Receipt With That? Whitney Afonso, PhD NC City & County Communicators 2015

Citizen Engagement: Budget Perspective 2  I work with budget officers.  I start with: Why? How? Outcomes?  The budget is a traditional point of access for citizen engagement.  Why?  What do you all do with the budget?

Traditional Ways to Relay Budget Info 3  Traditional budget  Hard to navigate  Build a roadmap  Fact sheets  Hard to decide what to present  Keep it in lay language with graphics  Videos  Public access Taken from Stephens (2011)

“Phases” of Engagement 4  Phase 1: Information  Phase 2: Consultation  Phase 3: Active participation  Where do most of our efforts fall?

A Taxpayer Receipt 5  Examples  Bulletin

Taxpayer Receipts 6  History  Third Way  “Radical centrists” think tank  2010: Suggest federal receipt   Idea picks up traction  NPR- Planet Money  2010: Jacob Goldstein

Taxpayer Receipts 7  2011 interview:  Who knows how much of our tax dollar went to develop clean energy or reduce our dependence on foreign oil? You know, that’s just one of the reasons we feel disconnected from our government, and we think a tax receipt would help give people an idea where their tax dollars go.- David Kendall from Third Way  White House Responds  April 2011: Taxpayer Receipt is launched

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State & Local Examples 9  Still new  Not common at state or local level yet  Georgia  Created by State Senator Doug Stoner 

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The Connecticut Example 12  This is the one we will discuss the most  It is not dynamic like the federal, GA, or NYC example  It is not just a % of spending breakdown

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Differences 14  What are the primary differences between Georgia and Connecticut?  Advantages?  Disadvantages?  Which is more feasible for your local government?

Creating a Taxpayer Receipt 15  For the dynamic one like GA and NYC  Just need to have a programmer and a website  Plug in the percentages and have it calculate the dollars after user inputs it  Disclaimer I am not a programmer!  For the CT style  Do not need a programmer  Can add values to the dollar amounts  More room for policy

Steps to Create CT Style 16  Assumption:  Only property taxes included  Step 1: Find either per capita property tax burden or average household property tax burden for your local government  Burden will be lower if per capita  More people may relate to household total  I will use household

Steps to Create CT Style 17  Step 2: Look at what property taxes fund in your government and what percentage they make up of that funding  This is where property taxes are going!  Step 3: Decide on the categories of spending  The big ones, but any smaller sub-categories you want to highlight  Think about your audience and priorities  Want to avoid too much “other”

Steps to Create CT Style 18  Step 4: For each of the categories of spending see what percentage of spending from property tax revenue they represent  Step 5: Multiply the tax burden by the percentages  I do this, like CT, on a monthly basis  So a 1/12 th of the total tax burden  This will not effect your percentages

Steps to Create CT Style 19  Step 6: Find other similarly priced items  Try to make them relevant to your area  Or at least fairly universal and recognizable

Steps to Create CT Style 20  Step 7: Format  Keep it simple!  Keep clusters of spending together  Think about how it will be disseminated  Can you include hyperlinks?  Will you be printing it?  Black and white vs color  How long?  You want to explain your methodology and where the #s come from

Orange County’s Taxpayer Receipt 21

Why a Receipt? 22  Information on the scope of what your jurisdiction does.  Information on the cost associated with these services.  Research has shown that citizens are more willing to pay for services:  When governments can link revenues with services  When they understand the need and the relationship between cost on provision

But other tools can do that… 23  People are accustomed to receiving a receipt when they make payments  Can put their payments into perspective:  Is that service worth that to me?

Risks of a Receipt 24  Easily manipulated.  What are some of the ways it can be manipulated?  How do we avoid that?

Will this work for you? 25  Take a few minutes and discuss at your table what you are already doing  Information sharing  Consultation  Active participation  Are there groups you are missing?  Are you already communicating this information effectively?  Is this something you would try in your community?

Involving the Budget Office 26  Keep in mind, many of them will immediately think:

Conclusion 27  Engagement can mean lots of different things  Need to consider your ultimate goal  How you want to use feedback, if you solicit it  There are numerous “low cost” options to create tools for disseminating information  Receipts  Bar charts  Let me know! I would like to hear about your experiences and if you try one. 

Looking to Engage Beyond Informing? 28  Fairfax County, VA  Can you create a better budget?

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Better Budget? 31  Not just informing though  Though it is  They are soliciting feedback about how “you” would spend the money

Resources 32  Berner, M. M., Amos, J. M., & Morse, R. S. (2011). What constitutes effective citizen participation in local government? Views from city stakeholders. Public Administration Quarterly, 35(1),  Jimenez, B. S. (2013). Raise Taxes, Cut Services, or Lay Off Staff: Citizens in the Fiscal Retrenchment Process. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.  Stephens, John B. 2011, Creating Effective Citizen Participation in Local Government Budgeting: Practical Tips and Examples for Elected Officials and Budget Administrators, Public Management Bulletin #06, Chapel Hill, NC: School of Government, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 37 pages.  Connecticut Taxpayer Receipt:   Fairfax County, Virginia: Build a better budget   Whitney Afonso 