Your City, Your Budget? Philly’s Fight for a Budget That Reflects the People

Image above: Alliance for a Just Philadelphia hold up signs during Council’s weekly stated meeting on June 12, where they voted 15-1 on the final budget to pass. Photo courtesy of the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia

On March 13, 2025, Mayor Cherelle Parker released her proposed city budget for fiscal year 2026. The three months that followed were meant to be the most participatory part of the budget process, the time for residents to speak up and advocate for their priorities. During this time, organizations like the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia, the Committee of Seventy, and the People’s Budget Office (housed under Mural Arts Philadelphia) mobilized to educate and engage the public. They organized budget workshops, submitted proposals outlining community priorities, collected surveys, and created opportunities for residents to learn how to effectively deliver public comment.

Meanwhile, billboards featuring some City Council members appeared across the city with the slogan “Your City, Your Budget”—the same phrase used to promote a series of Council-led town halls where officials presented budget details and fielded community questions. Additional town halls hosted by the mayor were more limited in format, offering little room for dialogue and functioning largely as presentations. Beyond these events, residents had only three formal opportunities to offer public testimony on the budget.

But with all this civic outreach, from grassroots organizing to city-sponsored events, did it actually make a difference? Was the slogan “Your City, Your Budget” reflected in the final decisions? This year, many advocates say the answer is no.

“We’re pretty dismayed to see counsel approve a budget that doesn’t take into consideration all the threats coming from the federal level,” said Kimmy Cook, Budget Engagement Organizer for the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia. “We saw them pass through major tax cuts that are codified for 13 years, which means that’s over a decade of losing funding for our city to fund all the public services that our communities need.”

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Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke were the only two elected officials repeatedly named by budget advocates as meaningfully engaging with their proposals throughout the budget process. Both expressed disappointment with the outcome in a joint statement shared on social media: “This budget falls short of what the people of Philadelphia deserve. Despite participation from thousands of community members leading into negotiations, the final budget was decided behind closed doors without meaningful input from the whole of Council.” Their statement also criticized the budget’s failure to account for looming federal funding cuts. Councilmember O’Rourke was unable to attend the final vote on June 12 due to a family emergency. Councilmember Brooks stood as the lone vote in opposition, while the rest of City Council passed the budget bills with near-unanimous support. Councilmember Brooks did support Mayor Parker’s HOME initiative.

The lack of community input in the city’s final budget echoed a familiar disappointment for many advocates, one that brought them back to the City Council’s controversial decision to approve the 76ers arena in Chinatown, despite overwhelming public opposition.

“It was a big lesson for a lot of folks,” reflects Vivian Chang, Executive Director of Asian Americans United. “What the community cares about is not necessarily what their representative cares about.”

Chang and others worry about the long-term impact this kind of disconnect can have on public morale.

“It really turned people off,” she says. “They feel like, ‘What’s the point? I gave all this time. Next time, I’m not even going to say anything.’ And then you get into a really vicious cycle.”

While the final outcome fell short of what budget advocates had hoped for, the different strategies they’ve developed to make the city budget accessible, and to give residents real avenues to influence it, offer valuable insight. These groups have mapped out much of the path toward what they call “a true people’s budget”, and they’ve also identified the key limitations that continue to prevent their efforts from fully translating into lasting policy change.

Understanding the City Budget: “It’s More Than Just Numbers”

The organizations working to make Philadelphia’s budget more accessible take different approaches, but they all share a core belief: the city budget isn’t just about numbers: it’s a moral document, a political tool, and a reflection of the city’s values. Decisions made in the budget shape daily life for residents, which is why advocates argue that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of how it works.

Each organization embeds education into its work. The Alliance for a Just Philadelphia hosted citywide budget meetings throughout the spring to keep coalition members and their communities engaged. The People’s Budget Office held general budget 101 workshops, including a couple of sessions in Spanish, as well as more advanced 201 trainings focused on specific areas of the budget. They also set up a public education space in LOVE Park from April to June, where passersby could drop in and learn. According to the Peoples’ Budget Office, around 300 people visited the space this season.

Erme Maula facilitating a Peoples Budget Office 101 Workshop on April 23, 2025 at Taller Puertorriqueño. Photo taken by Emily Hildenbrand.

The Committee of Seventy provided several educational opportunities, including an infographic in English, Spanish, and Chinese, a per-resident spending breakdown in partnership with The Philadelphia Citizen, and two interactive budget simulation workshops. In these simulations, participants took on the roles of policymakers, working together to allocate funding for a fictional city while navigating the same trade-offs and constraints real officials face.

“When residents understand how the city budget process works—who’s making decisions, when key moments happen, and what trade-offs are involved—they’re better equipped to engage in meaningful ways,” says Tanisha Bezue, Program Director at the Committee of Seventy.

According to Bezue, understanding the full picture, including the competing demands and limited resources that shape the budget, helps residents move from feeling like outsiders to seeing themselves as contributors to the process.

Participants of Committee of Seventy budget simulation workshops. Photo courtesy of Committee of Seventy.

For longtime Philadelphia resident, nurse, and community advocate Erme Maula, education is the first step toward advocacy, because it builds both knowledge and confidence. Maula was among the early organizers committed to breaking down the city budget and building public knowledge about how it works. Today, she’s a facilitator with the People’s Budget Office and a passionate defender of public spaces like parks and libraries. “It’s an empowerment thing of like ‘I have the power of understanding this. Therefore, I’m not just asking to ask—I actually have a say in how to make things happen’,” she explains. Education, in this context, is about more than grasping the mechanics of the budget, it’s a pathway into City Council chambers, into civic engagement, and into a deeper sense of belonging in the decisions that shape the city.

Maula also highlights the importance of connection within these learning spaces. “As community members we don’t always have spaces to meet people we don’t know,” she says. Budget workshops and gatherings become places where relationships are built and awareness expands. “This work can connect you to other people in the room who might be engaged in things you didn’t realize until that moment, you might be interested in.”

“We’re building power to win the city that we deserve”

Beyond making the city budget more accessible, one organization focuses primarily on driving legislative and policy change. The Alliance for a Just Philadelphia is a coalition of over three dozen community organizations, nonprofits, and advocacy groups that unite around key moments of decision-making, particularly the city budget and municipal elections. “Any moment where real decision-making at City Hall is going to affect all of us,” explains Kimmy Cook, an organizer with the Alliance. “We’re not only sharing information and making the budget more digestible. We are building power amongst our bases to advocate, to win the city we deserve.”

Each year, the Alliance releases their “People’s Budget” proposal, a collection of budget demands shaped by its member organizations and grounded in their on-the-ground campaigns. One example: the Alliance called for a $3.5 million increase to the Office of Worker Protections, which serves as a first stop for non-unionized workers facing exploitation. According to Cook, the office is drastically under-resourced, with only one staff member for every 200,000 workers. The proposal was developed by the Philly Black Worker Project and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and aligns with their successful advocacy to pass the POWER Act in May. Their demand was for the city to allocate this additional funding to ensure the new legislation is effectively implemented.

Alliance for A Just Philadelphia Coalition Members at City Council for Budget Public Testimony day on May 13, 2025. Photo courtesy of Alliance for A Just Philadelphia.

Despite packing City Council chambers with more than 100 residents for key hearings and submitting concrete, community-driven proposals, none of the Alliance’s funding demands were met in the final budget. Still, Cook emphasizes that the work wasn’t in vain. “We’re building relationships, building trust,” she says. “We’re so much stronger now as a whole. And we’re ready to, you know, confront whatever is going to come our way in the near or far future.”

Imagine a Fully Funded City

Beyond education and advocacy, a third piece of the people’s budget puzzle is imagination. The People’s Budget Office, an initiative under Mural Arts Philadelphia, supported by both the city of Philadelphia and the William Penn Foundation, invites artists to envision what a fully funded city could look like.

“We bring on artists-in-residence to explore different aspects of the budget, create stories, and develop visualizations that help bring these ideas to life,” says Phoebe Bachman, Facilitating Artist with the People’s Budget Office. Each year, three to four artists choose a specific topic within the city budget and translate it into artwork that reflects community priorities and possibilities. “Artists are well positioned to take that on,” Bachman explains. “They’re in the business of imagination, in the business of reimagining how things could be different.”

At the People’s Budget Office, this imaginative work isn’t limited to professional artists. Community members who attend budget workshops are also encouraged to share their own visions of a fully funded city, contributing drawings, ideas, and narratives. In this way, the imagination component becomes not only creative but collective.

From Imagination to Impact: What Needs to Change

As the next budget cycle approaches, organizations working to make the city budget more accessible are already preparing for what’s ahead. Many will reconvene this fall to reflect on the lessons from this year and begin shaping new demands.

“By the fall, we’re already kicking into gear,” says Kimmy Cook of the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia. “That’s when the mayor and department heads start crunching numbers for the next proposed budget.”

One major area of focus is addressing the structural barriers that prevented their efforts from making a deeper impact, many of which fall under the responsibility of local government.

The first barrier is access to information. Even seasoned budget advocates acknowledge that city budgeting is still hard to follow. “It’s not always easy to keep up, especially for residents who are balancing work, family, and other responsibilities,” says Tanisha Bezue of the Committee of Seventy. Vivian Chang of Asian Americans United adds that language access remains a major issue: “Many materials aren’t translated, even though the city is legally required to do so.” Even when documents are in English, the jargon can be overwhelming. This challenge extends beyond official city materials—most educational resources created by budget advocates are also primarily in English.

Another challenge is sustaining long-term impact. While some educational efforts around the city budget receive funding, much of the policy-focused work is still carried out by volunteers. Advocates describe “growing pains” as some organizations secure more funding than others, raising questions about whether resources are reaching the efforts that have the greatest influence on the budget.

Equally pressing is the issue of limited avenues for public input. This year the city offered only three public testimony sessions, held on weekdays, making it nearly impossible for many working residents to participate.

“Without a more inclusive, proactive structure for public participation,” says Bezue, “most residents are still reacting to decisions rather than shaping them.”

As planning begins for the fall, budget advocates will be returning to the table with a focus on these challenges, looking at what can be adjusted, and how early engagement might shape next year’s budget.