The Undergraduate Student Government Tempe will undergo a new process called "school participatory budgeting" in early November.
"Participatory budgeting is a democratic process where the budgeting process falls into the hands of citizens," said James Driscoll, a senior studying political science and the USGT senator for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who is spearheading the process. "The Council of Presidents from the ASASU (Associated Students of ASU) has really tried to focus on increasing student engagement this year."
Michael Kintscher, a graduate student studying computer science and the assembly president of Graduate Student Government, said that GSG will be looking at the new technique that USGT is taking on and will consider adopting it for its future assemblies.
"I would hope that it ensures the money is being spent by student government in a manner that's more consistent with what the student body actually needs, what their wants and interests are," Kintscher said.
Driscoll said he approached USGT President Mason DoVico with the idea.
"He thinks that the student voice really should be incorporated within student government, and that participatory budgeting would be a very direct way to do that," Driscoll said.
To get students involved with this new process, USGT has sent out invitations to students of all demographics for their first student assembly in early November.
These assemblies will host 50 to 100 student representatives and will have students split up into smaller groups and discuss concerns and ideas that are important to them. Each group will discuss how they can tackle a topic and why it should be important to the student government, according to Driscoll.
The next step will be proposal development, where Driscoll said students will create a "statement of intent" and a project plan that will be presented to the entire assembly and later deliberated by the student body. The top three proposals will be selected and taken on by USGT.
USGT is tasked with appropriating funds raised by student-paid program fees. Its 2024-2025 total allocated budget is currently around $3.6 million.
Driscoll said the goal for this new process is to increase student engagement and to make sure that students are aware that USGT wants to do its part to represent them.
"There's some literature on participatory budgeting that indicates that when people, especially citizens of a community, come together with their collective insights, they're often better at making those executive judgments," Driscoll said.
Kintscher said participatory budgeting can benefit all students, specifically the average student who's not engaged in college politics.
"Our research shows that students who participate in this process come out realizing more about how public budgets and public decision-making processes work," said Tara Bartlett, a clinical assistant professor at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and contributor to the ASU faculty written book, "Educating for Democracy: The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Schools."
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The book by Bartlett and Daniel Schugurensky, a professor at the School of Public Affairs, details the school participatory budgeting process for K-12 schools, but they hope it can transfer into higher education spaces like ASU.
Bartlett and Schugurensky are serving as advisors for USGT as it takes on this new avenue of financial management. Bartlett said that this process allows for students to be the ones leading what will be done with their portion of the public budget.
Bartlett said students will have opportunities to improve public speaking, problem-solving, project management and leadership skills through the new strategy.
"The goal is really to communicate that this is a process, the school participatory budgeting process, that truly anybody can do," Bartlett said. "It's very accessible."
Edited by George Headley, Sophia Braccio, Madeline Schmitke and Alysa Horton.
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Teanna is a freshman studying journalism and mass communication. This is her first semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Utah Bride and Groom Magazine and as a National Youth Correspondent for the Washington Journalism and Media Conference.
