KPBS’ Budget Game: You Decide the City of San Diego’s 2014 Budget

It’s budget season in San Diego and, in a little over a month Mayor Kevin Faulconer will sign the city’s budget for the next fiscal year.

The city budget serves as the city’s spending plan. Elected officials, community members, and you will get to weigh in on the issue so that the budget serves the city’s residents in the best manner possible. Last year, over 300 residents packed the Council chambers to voice support for various issues which allowed our local elected officials a way to gauge what the residents wanted and vote on a budget that would reflect the residents’ concerns.

However, since the City Council and our new Mayor hasn’t figured out how to make it rain money, the approved budget will always be a reflection of priorities that both the mayor and the nine council members can agree on.

KPBS has again gotten involved to breakdown the complex budget process and they have created an interactive game to showcase in a simplified way how our electeds have to make decisions to reflect their constituents’ concerns. If you had $2.75 billion to spend on meeting all your city’s needs, how would you spend that money? What would you cut and what city services would you start charging for?

Included in this game are options to create more bike lanes on key neighborhood thoroughfares that are currently unpleasant to ride on, and the option to bring back red light cameras to hold negligent drivers accountable.

budget2

budget1

What would your budget look like?