‘People’s budget’ gets a real-world test in Cleveland’s Slavic Village

Cleveland advocates for a “people’s budget” are in the final stages of a six-month, $100,000 pilot program in Slavic Village meant to demonstrate that residents can successfully identify neighborhood priorities and direct the funds to support them. 

Participatory Budgeting Cleveland (PB CLE), the group behind the effort, fell just short of convincing voters in 2023 to force officials through the city charter to give residents a direct say over a small portion of the city budget. But the group says its pilot program – which is conducting a neighborhood election through Aug. 22 on which projects to fund – already shows community governance is possible. 

More than 150 people have voted so far, though some neighborhood residents are raising concerns about the voting process and how projects were vetted. Designed as a beacon for a more inclusive model of local decision-making, backers acknowledge some friction but said the project is nonetheless working as intended. 

Longtime Slavic Village activist reluctantly joins pilot project and raises concerns

After reviewing applications for projects from 15 Cleveland neighborhoods, PB CLE picked Slavic Village to host the $100,000 pilot. The pilot is funded by $75,000 from the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition and $25,000 from Third Federal Foundation. PB CLE also received support from residents in and outside of Cleveland who supported the group’s goals. 

Slavic Village residents of at least high-school age are allowed to vote on 10 project proposals selected by a committee from among 125 submitted ideas. The five proposals that receive the most votes will be funded. The proposals include expanding a pet pantry that helps animal owners access pet food and resources and one to create a year-round garden center. (For a full list of the projects being voted on, see the box below the story.)

Among the pilot’s participants is one of its loudest critics: Odetta Fields, who was born and raised in the neighborhood and whose great-grandparents moved here in the 1930s. 

“There are people who think we live here because we are stuck here,” Fields told Signal Cleveland. “ We are not stuck. We’re here because we believe in this community and want to be here.”

Fields is the executive director of the Southeast Cleveland Resource Center, a storefront on Fleet Avenue where residents can stop in for help. She is actively involved in different community projects, events and initiatives in Slavic Village and said she has seen her fair share of changes over the years.

“When I was growing up here, it was booming. I’ve also seen the area go through desegregation, so I’ve seen it all,” Fields said. 

PB CLE selected Fields to participate in the pilot because of her history in the neighborhood. But since working with the group, Fields has been publicly questioning the group’s procedures. 

PB CLE first asked Fields to be on its steering committee, she said. The steering committee includes 10 residents who designed the process, established policies and procedures, and implemented and evaluated the project proposals alongside PB CLE leaders. The steering committee also had the final say on which 10 proposals  residents would vote on.

Fields, who did not support the 2023  “people’s budget” ballot initiative, officially known as Issue 38, was reluctant to join. She cited her disappointments with past community initiatives that failed to deliver on promises. She was also concerned that at the time she was asked to join, PB CLE did not have the funds in hand to launch the pilot.

“Those things were red flags to me,” Fields said. 

Once funding for the pilot was secured, Fields agreed to join the group’s steering committee, she said. According to Fields, she attended her first committee meeting and everything went well. Days later, when the group published its official list of steering committee members, Fields was not on it.

Fields said PB CLE told her it wanted her on the group’s advisory committee instead. That committee has less direct oversight. It is tasked with assisting the steering committee in the event that they need additional guidance over decision making. She declined the offer because it wasn’t the best use of her time, she said.

Critic alleges that not all project proposals were properly vetted

Weeks later, Fields said, PB CLE asked her to become a budget delegate. She agreed to join out of curiosity and because those participating in discussion received a $100 stipend, Fields said. (Fields’ background in grant writing also made her a good fit, she said.) 

Fields said that while attending a budget delegate meeting she witnessed a committee disregard a significant number of submitted ideas without thorough reviews. Fields said she attempted to talk to PB CLE leadership about her concerns, but they did not respond to her. This prompted Fields to resign from her role as a budget delegate.

Fields also has complained about the voting process, particularly the lack of protocols in place to ensure neighborhood residents were the only ones voting. Per the PB CLE guidebook, eligible residents have the option to vote on proposals in-person or online. But Fields said residents did not have to present any kind of ID to vote, raising concerns that non-neighborhood residents could influence the outcome. 

In addition, Fields said the steering committee had too much influence over the proposals making the ballot. She alleges that members of the steering committee were able to submit ideas that could be drafted into proposals while also having the power to vet them for the ballot. Furthermore, Fields said she believes that members of the committee used surrogates to submit their proposals to avoid scrutiny.

PB CLE said it adjusted pilot to allow more input and checked for duplicate voters

Cassie Park, program coordinator for PB CLE, told Signal Cleveland that many of the concerns raised by Slavic Village residents have been taken into account throughout the six-month pilot. 

Park said that what some critics saw as “flaws” in the pilot’s structure were intentional design choices meant to lower barriers to participation for residents who are typically excluded from local government.

Park acknowledged the neighborhood’s complex history of disinvestment feeds skepticism toward outside projects. Park said that’s why the organization intentionally chose to “slow down” the process and seek a broad range of input from Slavic Village residents. This approach, she explained, was designed to foster greater trust by spending months engaging first with block clubs and resident leaders before any formal project implementation began. 

Park characterized the PB CLE team’s role as “table setters” – providing the necessary structure and goals while empowering the steering committee to lead the outreach and shape the pilot’s design. 

As for the voter verification, Park confirmed that it did not require residents to present identification at the time of voting. Instead, Park said, PB CLE partnered with PB Stanford to conduct voter audits. 

“Our verification method involves making sure our elections remain integrous on the back end,” Park said. “We have a validation subcommittee, made up of Steering Committee members, who will oversee the audit that PB CLE and PB Stanford does.”

The audits flag duplicate names, addresses, IP addresses, voters that are younger than 13, any addresses not in Slavic Village and fake addresses. There is also a review process for ballots that are not filled out correctly.

As of Aug. 12, 176 residents had voted, PB CLE said. The first audit PB Stanford conducted flagged “a few” duplicates and incomplete ballots, Park said. She acknowledged that some people who voted should not have, but the group wanted to lean toward being more inclusive, which it says is the bigger picture. 

“That is something we are choosing not to investigate as deeply because we are prioritizing access,” Park said. “That is something PB CLE has the ability to do as an independent, innovative process as opposed to a formal election process.” 

PB CLE insists all ideas were fairly considered 

Park pushed back on Fields’ claims that all ideas were not given a fair chance to make it on the ballot. She said that all 125 ideas were reviewed and the group used categorization and breakout groups to assess ideas. She said the steering committee held additional meetings to ensure each submission received consideration before narrowing the field to 10 ballot items.

Park confirmed that members of the steering committee were eligible to submit ideas. She recalls having long conversations with PB CLE about this matter.

“It was written in our guidebook that Steering Committee members were invited to participate in the process at each stage,” Park said. “They themselves are residents in the community, and we wanted to prioritize access and their creative networks.”

Park confirmed that two proposals on the ballot belong to steering committee members. She said they were included because they fit the required criteria for eligibility and not influenced by bias. She said many other idea submissions did not meet eligibility rules. To deter any conflict of interests in the final voting phase, the two committee members have been prohibited from overseeing the ballot auditing.

Despite tension, both sides said participatory budgeting should have a future here 

Regardless of the criticisms and the friction that has accompanied this pilot, both supporters and skeptics agree that the experiment has sparked an important conversation about the future of civic engagement in Cleveland. 

As the Slavic Village pilot moves toward its Aug. 22 conclusion, the lessons learned — whether about transparency, equity, or the challenges of grassroots organizing — will likely influence how future community-led initiatives are designed, leaders said. 

Despite their differences, Fields and the PB CLE leaders agree on the most important element of the proposal: Residents should have a greater say. 

“I think it can be done if it is executed properly,” Fields said. “Participatory budgeting itself is an interesting concept, but, personally, I do not think this pilot is accomplishing what it is intended to do.”

Park acknowledges that there have been some bumps along the way, but she stands by the pilot and the work PB Cleveland has done to date. 

“We approached the pilot wanting to prove that participatory budgeting is possible in Cleveland, which I think it is,” Park said. “It’s a moldable process, but we’ve learned a lot of lessons about slowing down and listening to residents along the way. We remain committed to values of access, openness and creating opportunities for every resident to have an equal say in neighborhood funding.”