The California Budget Challenge

Next 10, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating the public about state policies and civic engagement in California, has released the updated California Budget Challenge: an interactive, online tool that allows users to allocate the state’s funds as they see fit while also keeping in mind how to finance their decisions.

This year’s budget balancing tool is sleek and easy to navigate, but the challenge itself is a difficult task. With a $15.7 billion starting deficit, the introduction of voter propositions, and the ability to see how your decisions would affect California citizens in real-time, the challenge is much harder than at first glance. This, however, is all part of Next 10’s effort to make the tool resemble the real process of creating the 2012-2013 California state budget.

There are more than 10 sections of the budget that users must work with to make spending and revenue-increasing decisions. Users can analyze four or more options to “cut” or “spend” any section of the budget or, if they prefer, to keep the ongoing policy. A detailed summary about the section, voter propositions, and a “pros and cons” tab helps users weigh their options. Depending on what you choose, a red bar will indicate an increase or decrease to the deficit. Users also can dip into the reserve if they believe all of their decisions are necessary. Not only is this an interesting, fun way to see how balancing our state budget works, but also it is an engaging way to learn more about state policies—what they are, why they are important, and whom they affect.

If users are happy with their final budget, they can choose to send their proposed solutions to California’s elected officials.

Think you’re up for the challenge? Give it a try here.

Posted by Lindsey Nguyen

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2012 at 12:16 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.