Public Budgets 101: How To Influence Government Spending

"If you want to know what your local government cares about – follow the money trail. That is what the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group (NCBG) has been doing since 1988 – helping residents of low-income Chicago neighborhoods understand the power and the importance of influencing government's bottom line. NCBG's goal has been to open up the budgeting process to a substantive public debate on the most important and effective expenditures to improve our neighborhoods, transparency and disclosure about where public revenues are coming from and how they’re being spent, and more equitable distribution of the public wealth to communities."