2013FIRST YEAR

ACTIVITIES OUTCOMES

LESSONS LEARNED

With a population of 100 000, Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia, the centre of Southern Estonia and the traditional "intellect capital". Several ICT and technology enterprises are based here, for whose support the city is developing a technology park and, in collaboration with the University of Tartu, a smart cluster of e- and m-city solutions called Smart City Lab. As is typical of a university town, the citizens of Tartu are active and technology-friendly, creating good prerequisites for online participation techniques of today.

In 2013, Tartu became the first local government in Estonia to start with participative budgeting - one small part of the city's budget was decided by the locals.

Participative budgeting has been tested a lot all over the world - from Porto Alegre in Brazil to the latest members of the "club", like San Francisco, New York and Reykjavík. And now the city of Tartu that decided to execute the project of participative budgeting in the year 2013.

Like with every new beginning, not everything went smoothly. Here, we give an overview of Tartu's experiences of this first year: how participative budgeting was prepared, put into practice, how it ended up and what was learned in the process.

INTR

ODUCTIO

N

TARTU

ASSEMBLING A WORKING

TEAM (IN MARCH 13)

GROUP MEETINGS 3 SCENARIOS FINAL

SCENARIO DECISION OF THE CITY COUNCIL

(JUNE 2013)

PLA

NN

INGIn March 2013, the city

assembled a working team consisting of the

mayor, the secretary of the city, the assistant

mayors, employees of the public relations

department, lawyers, representatives from all

the factions of the city council and an expert

from the e-Governance Academy (eGA).

From March until June, the team counselled by

eGA developed three different scenarios for participative budgeting

All three scenarios differed from each other

in goals, structure and proportion of discussion

democracy involved.

The final scenario was completed. Tthe city council confirmed

the scenario (scheme 2) and the part of the budget

to be allocated for participative budgeting -

1% of the investment budget, i.e. 140 000 €

(scheme 3).

(scheme 2)

1 AUGUST

SCENARIO

OPEN CALL Introducing the process Web environment

2 Gathering proposalsOnline form Traditional channels

PROPOSALS SEPTEMBER 10th

Systemization Expert opinions Selecting ideas

EXPERTOPINION

SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER

An event to introduce the final selected ideas Online transmission

INTRODUCINGIDEAS

NOVEMBER

Voting (online, ballot box) Processing the votesWinning idea(s)

VOTING NOVEMBER

Executing the council's / participativebudgeting decision

IMPLEMENTINGTHE FINAL IDEA

FROM THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER

(scheme 3)

•The reasons and logic behind budgeting will be understood better and it will be criticized less.

•The decision making within the city government will be understood better and trust for these decisions will increase.

•Cooperation within the community of Tartu and between communities will improve.

•Planning and executing the project will make all those involved more carefully consider problematic areas and possible solutions.

•The citizens' wish to participate in other projects will increase.

TARTU TOTAL BUDGET [2013]

151 785 712 €

INVESTMENT BUDGET [9,5% OF TOTAL ]

14 483 667 €

PARTICIPATIVE BUDGET

140 000 € So the idea to be presented had to: • be an object (building, monument, statue, fountain etc.) in public city space that as many locals as possible could get a part of. • be achievable with a budget. • be achievable within one year.

THE GOALS SET WITHPARTICIPATIVE BUDGETING

BUDGET

GOALS

IMPLEM

ENTIN

G

IDEAS

EXPERTS

VOTEDECISION

INTRODUCING

IDEAS

IDEAS

EXPERTS

VOTEDECISION

INTRODUCING

IDEAS

RES

ULT

S

PARKS

BENCHES

SQUARES, STAIRS,PLACES

PLAYING GROUNDS

SPORT

CULTURE,COMMUNICATION

ART IN PUBLIC SPACES

EMAJÕGI,ANNE CANAL

SIDEWALKS, BICYCLE LANES

BICYCLE RENTALS AND PARKING LOTS

BUILDINGS,MONUMENTS

7

7

7

IDEAS 8

96

12

4

4

5

5

The citizens of Tartu proposed 158 ideas (only one on paper, others were sent in via email)

74 ideas were put up to a vote

Votes could be cast either electronically or on paper (in the town hall's information centre) by all habitants of Tartu who were at least 16 years old. The voting lasted for a week.

VOTING FOR THE IDEAS

The Tartu city council confirmed the decision by accepting the budget on the 19th of December 2013.

During and after the project, several studies were conducted (observa-tion of the organised events, focus group interviews with authors of the ideas and experts, questionnaires) to evaluate the process and its communication.

2645 votes were cast in total: 2370 online and 275 on voting tickets.

The winning idea "Investing in presentation technology for Kultuurikvartal (Culture block)" got 773 votes.

3,3 % of the electorate in Tartu cast their vote.

The eldest voter was a 92-year-old who gave her vote electronically. The average age of all the voters was 38 years. 1106 of the voters were men and 1539 were women.

VOTING STATISTICS

40%35%30%25%20%15%10%5%

36%

22%

16-1920-29

30-3940-49

50-5960-69

70-7980+

20% 11%

VOTIN

G STATISTICS

2370 ONLINE

2645

275 VOTING TICKETS

What are the people of Tartu expecting?

* more public gatherings (in the phase of presenting ideas)* more clarity and transparence when it comes to the budget of the city* more and better advertising for the project in public places* contemporary and well-working web and voting environments* more locations and possibilities for voting

What can the city government do differently?

* change the scenario (organize discussion meetings right at the beginning of the process, include more NGO's in the planning).* change the voting system so that even the "small ideas" would have better chances* think about exciting interest in younger people

THE MAIN GOAL FOR NEXT YEAR COULD BE:

10-15 ideas, which are innovative in content and the purpose and execution of which have been discussed within the community, will be put up for a vote. Each idea has its own strong support group that actively introduces their idea. At least 10% of the electorate in tartu will participate in the vote and make an informed substantial choice.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PROJECT

LESS

ON

S LE

ARN

ED

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR NEXT TIME:How to better explain and advertise a process with little human and financial resources?

How to motivate citizen organizations and ommunity leaders to actively mobilize thecommunity and stand behind similar ideas?

Mikser Creative Studiowww.mikser.ee

Ahto Sooruahto@mikser.ee

Additional information:

www.tartu.ee/participativebudgeting

Kristina Reinsalu, director of the local governments program of the e-State Academy, participative budgeting expert kristina.reinsalu@ega.ee

Department of Public Relations of Tartu City Government aso@raad.tartu.ee

Composed by: Design: