Budget Bucks

Our participatory Budget Bucks activity encourages all residents to help shape which areas our City budget prioritizes. Please review the descriptions below and click the link to cast your votes! For this activity, you will have a $100 budget to manage. Distribute your $100 among the five areas, allotting more money to the area(s) you think are most important. After you complete the activity, you will be able to see how many others have participated and what areas those folks deem most important. You do not have to create a log in or password to participate, but you will be asked to provide your email address to receive your unique participation link.

Organizational Excellence: Create and support an engaged workforce and organization that delivers an efficient, innovative, transparent and collaborative City government.

• Increase employee satisfaction with pay and benefits.

• Increase employee engagement levels.

• Foster a positive, equitable organizational culture.

• Improve the residents’ and visitors’ experience across City services.

• Build a leading government organization that manages all resources wisely through accountability, innovation and efficiency.

Safe Community: Provide equitable community-centered public health and safety services to ensure the City is safe for all.

• Build trust between the City of Columbia and Black, Indigenous and people of color.

• Improve services to the City’s most vulnerable populations.

• Improve outcomes associated with the City’s community safety function.

• Improve the City’s overall emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

Inclusive & Equitable Community: Cultivate a community focusing on equitable access, inclusive engagement and equal opportunity and treatment for all.

• Increase equity comprehension and impact in City decision making.

• Improve community engagement to include all identities, languages and needs.

• Ensure all members of the community experience equal opportunity and treatment in all interactions with City government.

Resilient Economy: Foster a resilient and diverse economy that meets the needs of our community.

• Foster a more diverse business community.

• Expand the supply of affordable housing for low- to moderate-income members of the Community.

• Reduce the burden of transportation to finding and maintaining employment and employees.

• Increase accessibility of external data relevant to economic trends for stakeholders to make data-driven decisions.

Reliable & Sustainable Infrastructure: Provide reliable, sustainable and innovative infrastructure for the efficient delivery of municipal services to meet the current and future needs of our community.

• Maintain and expand Columbia’s infrastructure.

• Improve Columbia’s infrastructure to equitably expand where infrastructure is lacking.

• Prepare Columbia’s natural and built environments for the impacts of climate change.