In mid-November, the Budget Office staff presented an in-depth overview of the City of Cambridge FY25 Budget beyond Participatory Budgeting to PB Delegates and broadly covered where City's revenue comes from and how it is spent. Staff emphasized that as a government entity, the City of Cambridge must balance its budget every year, meaning every dollar expended on projects and services must match every dollar generated in revenue. The focus of the budget is placed on effectively responding to community needs while ensuring the budget remains balanced.

A few of the City’s spending priorities include:

• Climate change and sustainability
• Affordable housing & homelessness
• Traffic safety
• Anti-racism, equity, and inclusion initiatives
• Early childhood education

Some of these same priorities are reflected and reinforced in last year’s winning PB10 projects, which were funded through the FY25 capital budget:

• Build shaded seating areas on hot streets
• Expand space around newly planted trees
• Provide essential supplies for unhoused residents
• Improve pedestrian safety with raised crosswalks, interactive speed limit signs, and flashing crosswalks.

As part of its FY26 capital budget, the City of Cambridge will set aside $1 million dollars for the Participatory Budgeting winning projects of the PB11 cycle. These funds come from property taxes.

To learn more about the City's FY25 budget, visit the Budget Office website at cambridgema.gov/departments/budget.

This year's Youth Committee includes Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students ages 14-16 who participate in the Moses Youth Center in The Port neighborhood. They are currently reviewing and researching over 100 youth-related ideas submitted to PB, with a focus on the need and impact of projects from the perspective of being young people growing up in Cambridge. They recently met in-person with City department staff in the second round of Speed Consulting. Here’s their take on what they learned!

“I took away that some of these ideas can’t come true because of money and time. I was told they don’t have PS5s in the library because they’re so expensive and how noisy it can be in the library. The other idea was that kids can be taught to be librarians by librarians, but the librarians currently don’t have the time, and it would be expensive.

Still, I think this meeting was good. It was good to get these ideas in their minds to consider them and to see how it goes. They liked the ideas, but I think they’ll happen more in the long run.”

Natanim, age 14, Youth Delegate

Kaiylne, age 16, Youth Delegate



“I was surprised at the amount of people it takes to create projects; it’s not only one person that works on it. It’s multiple people and they all have to agree to it. I have more insight now on how to actually create a project and what I need to do.”

Q: Do you have any advice for future youth delegates?

“Ask as many questions as you can because [City staff] are really nice and they took a lot of time with me.”

Bontu, age 15, Youth Delegate

“I realized that the City of Cambridge, even if they wanted to, can’t pay for a girl’s softball coach [the City works with non-profit partners, it doesn’t run the girl’s softball league]. When I came here, I thought that they [City staff] just didn’t care about gender equality. After the meeting, I just realized this [softball leagues] was out of their control."

Q: Is there something you want to work on in PB regarding sports?

“Yes, have the city work with the non-profit teams and have them hire a girls’ softball coach so girls don’t feel left out. Also, make a volleyball court in Cambridge.”

Rehan, age 15, Youth Delegate

“I had a lot of questions about basketball courts. Some of the questions I asked were how much it would cost to build indoor courts because I know a lot of people want them and how much to renew the courts....I was surprised by the cost. I thought it would be $2,000 for a rim. So for $110k we can’t do it for the whole city, but maybe just one or two places.



We get to propose four projects, and I think they should be four different categories. I know we want to target basketball, and a lot of people want it, but I think we should choose other projects to benefit the whole city—like others might want improvements in their parks.”

PB Delegates are currently developing a “shortlist” of proposals for a final review after meeting with city department representatives for a second round of questions and answers at the end of November. (Learn more about Speed Consulting on our previous newsletter issue!).

Each proposed project is evaluated on need, impact, and feasibility. Any eligible project must meet all three of these minimum criteria to move forward to the ballot.

This step is where the PB Delegates’ passion, extensive research, and hard choices come into play. Proposed projects must demonstrate:

• Need: target a lack of equal access and disparities, and/or reflect high levels of community support.
• Impact: projects must either benefit a large number of people and/or benefit underserved members of our community. The project should be located in a place where community members regularly meet, and benefit Cambridge residents.
• Feasibility: a project proposal must match up with PB guidelines such as being located on City of Cambridge property and cost under the $1 million dollar budget.

Such challenges! PB Delegates are working hard to navigate these complexities that go into creating a strong project. It will be exciting to see the final proposals!

Test your PB Cambridge knowledge by answering a few trivia questions below! Correct answers are linked at the end of this section.

Hint: The PB website is your best tool!

Great job making it through the quiz! Answers for the questions are as follows:

• Question 1: Urban Micro-Forests for Cambridge with 4,829 votes in the seventh PB cycle!
• Question 2: Gately Youth Center! The mural pictured is the Pemberton Street Mural, which was one of three murals funded in the PB9 cycle.
• Question 3: Universal Design Playground! Projects for a universal design playground were on the PB ballot for PB2, PB3, and PB4, but never won funding through the vote. Recognizing the value of this project, the City pursued the construction of a universal design playground outside of the PB process, and at a much larger scale than was proposed through PB. The Louis A. DePasquale Universal Design Playground at Danehy Park was completed in 2022.!

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