Questions too often asked at City University of New York (CUNY): "Where is my money and tuition going? How are my student activity fees being spent?"

CUNY students possess few tools to exercise democratic control and power on their campuses. On many campuses, students are strongly dissatisfied with their student governments. Elections for student governments at CUNY are too often run in an invasive manner. When in office, student governments are often unresponsive to the student body as a whole and lack transparency in their operations. As a public university, CUNY should be a place where democracy is not simply learned in the classroom, but learned in practice.

One solution is participatory budgeting (PB). PB is a process in which people of a community get to exercise real decision-making power. Rather than politicians or administrators deciding how to spend a portion of the public budget, people do! With PB, the people themselves come up with project-proposals for how they would like to see their money spent, and then vote on the projects they want implemented.

Student Organization for Democratic Alternatives believes we can and should have participatory budgeting at CUNY!

PB currently operates in 27 of 51 New York City Council districts. Last year, through PB, over $32 million was allocated by NYC residents themselves. PB is currently being implemented at Queens College, but we feel it can transform how the approximately 500,000 CUNY students relate to each other and their university. Through PB, CUNY students won't just know where their money is being spent; Students will directly decide where their money is going.

For more information on participatory budgeting in NYC, go to this website.

For a visual introduction to participatory budgeting, WATCH this video.

Also, check back for a our soon-to-be launched website: www.pb4cuny.org

To find out how you can get involved, contact alex@nycworker.coop