Abstract
Local government budgeting fundamentally shapes service delivery and equity, yet systematic attention to how institutional constraints and transparency practices influence public participation remains limited. This report asks: How do legal, fiscal, capacity, and social constraints influence the design, presentation, and equity potential of municipal budgets in the United States? We conducted a comprehensive analysis of 38 city and county budget documents, supplemental materials, and public-engagement tools, supplemented by interviews with finance officials and review of Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) guidelines. The memo shows that incremental line-item budgeting persists due to rigid legal mandates, state-level fiscal preemption, labor agreements that lock in expenditures, and a rushed budget development cycle that is often understaffed. Staffing constraints in finance departments coupled with limited technical resources results in many budgets being published as static PDFs lacking searchable tables, glossaries, or consolidated fund summaries, with key information about indirect and “nondepartmental” costs obscured. Social constraints further limit inclusion: public engagement typically occurs late in the process, relies on self-selected participants, and rarely extends beyond English-language materials. The memo highlights promising practices in a few jurisdictions that offer interactive dashboards, mid-year spending updates, or participatory budgeting portals. Unfortunately, these tools often have a limited scope and lack feedback mechanisms for public input. The most equitable practices such as multilingual budget summaries, real-time expenditure tracking, and community-led “people’s budgets” often emerge from grassroots initiatives rather than official processes. This suggests that advancing budget equity requires more than improved transparency; it demands institutional reforms that embed meaningful public voice directly into core budget design.