RISE Together Bay Area
Opportunity Summit: Changing the Game - Session 2
Budget Justice & Eradicating Fees and Fines
Budget Justice
Challenges and inequities in government and government budgets tend to disproportionally affect the most marginalized community members. Learn about participatory budgeting (PB), a model that hails from Brazil, centers equity and allows people to engage directly in deciding how public funds are spent. This session will include a review of what participatory budgeting is, how it works in the US and how you could win a PB process in your community.
Many government-funded services are delivered and contracted at the county level, yet very few people understand how county budgets are funded and developed, who the key decision-makers are, and how community members can engage in and influence the county budgeting process and outcomes. This session will also highlight the work of a local budget justice coalition in Contra Costa that educates the community about how county budgets work, and advocates for community engagement in the county’s budgeting process and for a set of values-based budgeting principles that prioritizes services for those most in need.
Shari Davis, Participatory Budgeting Center
Dan Geiger, Contra Costa Budget Justice Coalition
Debbi Lerman, San Francisco Budget Justice Coalition
Eradicating Fees & Fines (40 minutes)Criminal Justice related fees and fines have a significant impact on the economic stability of individuals and families. These costs are even harder to pay due to systemic employment barriers and the high cost of living in the Bay Area. The average adult on probation in Alameda County is charged over $6,000 in probation fees alone, according to the East Bay Community Law Center. EBCLC’s report, Pay or Prey, finds that “because of long-standing and pervasive racial bias at every juncture of the criminal justice system, criminal justice fees fall disproportionately on residents of color.” While each jurisdiction has the purview to conduct ability to pay determinations, this is not regularly occurring.
This session will highlight local reforms to end criminal justice fees and fines, including San Francisco and Alameda Counties, as well as the statewide work of Debt Free Justice California to build a movement to end the criminalization of poverty and assess and reform fines and fees across the state.
Anne Stuhldreher, Financial Justice Project
Lewis Brown, PolicyLink
Brandon Greene, Civic Design Lab, City of Oakland