The City of Walnut Creek, California is among the earliest-adopters of Priority Based Budgeting, having first implemented the process in 2009. As Priority Based Budgeting Week continues, we wanted to share with you one of the most significant breakthroughs to date in the work – highlighting what the City has done on their own to transform the way they communicate about the budget with their citizens.

So many of us are working so hard to make headway in “authentic citizen engagement.” It’s not easy! One of our fundamental objectives in creating the “unique lens” of Priority Based Budgeting was, and continues to be, offering a way to “see” the budget in a way that is so intuitive, so clear, any citizen, any elected official, any staff member, anybody could understand immediately how decisions are made. Not only that, but we want to make it so clear what decisions and what options are open to us; to provide clarity where it’s sometimes uncertain (that was much of the focus of this September’s PM Magazine article).

This advancement from Walnut Creek offers such hope and excitement about what’s possible. The City is pioneering in so many ways, not just Priority Based Budgeting, and we encourage you to reach out to them (contact Assistant City Manager / Administrative Services Director, Lorie Tinfow at tinfow@walnut-creek.org).

With the “2012-2014 Budget Story,” we are pleased to introduce yet another innovation from Walnut Creek!

 - from Page 1: The 2012-2014 Budget Story