Mia López
Staff Writer
Marcia Godwin, associate professor of public administration, has set out to educate those who will listen about the subject of participatory budgeting.
Participatory budgeting is when the people of a specific community decide how to allocate funds that are a part of a public budget.
On Tuesday, Godwin spoke on the issue in the President’s Dining Room as part of the ongoing faculty lecture series.
The audience was small, with approximately 10 people in attendance.
“I think I’ve just had a long-standing interest in having government being more transparent,” Godwin said.
Godwin presented an information-packed slideshow, which expanded on the basics of participatory budgeting.
The process begins with a community gathering to brainstorm ideas, some of which turn into proposals, she said.
A project expo is then held, which is conjoined with the voting phase, she said.
After reviewing the proposed projects, a governing body selects the “winners” and disperses the available budget amongst them.
Toward the end of presentation, Godwin presented a video that showed a real-world situation in which participatory budgeting came into play.
The video showed the journey of two men from East Harlem, New York, and their mission was to bring much needed improvements to the local basketball courts.
With the facility being overall unsafe for the citizens to use, the two men looked to join their local District 8 projects committee.
Here, the two men learned about participatory budgeting, and how it could benefit their cause.
After numerous citizens showed up to participate in a voting regarding fund allocation, their project was ultimately not picked up.
However, the men expressed that they were not discouraged because they gained knowledge in the process.
The video and presentation as a whole sparked a lively follow-up discussion.
Godwin explained that she has had firsthand experience with this, in what she describes as a social movement.
She also added that she had worked in city government for a number of years before coming to the University.
Amanda Saddlemire, junior psychology major, described her unexpected interest in the topic of participatory budgeting.
“It is a great concept that gives a lot of minority people more of a voice within the government that they don’t normally get,” Saddlemire said.
She did, however, say that she wishes the committees had a larger budget available to them so that the amount of projects the committees invested in could increase.
“I like the idea of it all, but I just would like to know why the budgets are so restricted,” said Nazeli Nalbantian, sophomore political science major.
Mia López can be reached at mia.lopez@laverne.edu.
Mia López
