• Home
  • Archive
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us
  • May 29, 2025

The Madison Times

The Paper That's More Than Black and White

  • News
    • Local News
    • National News
    • International News
    • Sports News
    • Education News
  • Columns
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Life Lessons with Alex Gee
  • Events
  • Health
  • Finance
  • Lifestyle
  • Classifieds
  • Community
    • Middle Spread
  • Milwaukee

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Milwaukee Common Council Approves $600,000 for Participatory Budgeting Program

April 12, 2025

Devin Anderson, Campaign and Membership Director at African American Roundtable (Photo/AART)

By Karen Stokes

For over five years, the African American Roundtable (AART) has advocated Participatory Budgeting in Milwaukee. On April 2, their persistent efforts paid off as the Common Council approved a $600,000 Participatory Budgeting program.

Participatory Budgeting is a democratic process where community members directly decide how to allocate a portion of a public budget.

“The reason why we advocated for Participatory Budgeting is because we believe in people, we believe that residents in the African American community should have the power to make decisions,” said Devin Anderson, Campaign and Membership Director at AART.

Anderson shared that AART will play a key role in ensuring the $600,000 that was won for the community is used in a way that creates the greatest impact.

“I think the next steps are few, one is to celebrate. Organizing is hard, we’ve been working on this for five years and to have this moment is special,” said Anderson. “Then the next step is the implementation. One of the things about organizing is that after you win, it is important to make sure that you’re following up your win by tracking implementation.”

The African American Roundtable (AART) is a collective led by and dedicated to serving Milwaukee’s Black community. As part of their ongoing efforts, they will also focus on community education, helping residents better understand what participatory budgeting is and how it works.

The city will begin forming a steering committee—a group of individuals who will establish the rules, guidelines, and parameters for how the participatory budgeting funds will be used.

“When the timeline is laid out, we will be engaging residents having voting parties to make sure that our people are voting and participating in this because we know that the way information is shared is not always equal so our job is making sure that the information and this opportunity gets to all parts of Milwaukee,” he said.

Anderson also stressed the importance of keeping the funds aligned with community priorities.

“We want to ensure that this pot of money is going to what residents want and that it’s not going to the police,” Anderson said. “The Milwaukee Police get over $300 million every year and with these $600,000 we want to be funding initiatives that we hope and believe help safety that isn’t through the lens of needing to invest more to police.”

When asked about the future of Participatory Budgeting in Milwaukee, Anderson said,

“This is a pilot. If you listened to the Common Council, it’s clear they don’t currently see it as something to implement every year. But our stance is different — we want to prove otherwise and make participatory budgeting an annual process.”

“Throughout this process folks will be able to see what participatory budgeting has the power to potentially do and that it can go from this pilot to something that is more embedded within the culture of Milwaukee,” he said.

Two community celebrations are planned: a virtual celebration live on Facebook at 5:30 p.m. on April 17, and an in-person celebration on Saturday, April 26 at 5:00 p.m. Visit aartmke.org for more details.

To learn more about participatory budgeting visit participatorybudgeting.org

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Popular Interests In This Article: African American Roundtable, Devin Anderson, Karen Stokes, Participatory Budgeting

Read More - Related Articles

  • UW–Oshkosh Renames Multicultural Center to Honor Dr. Dorian Boyland
  • Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill to Extend Medicaid Coverage for New Mothers
  • Milwaukee News Company Secures Partnership with Amazon
  • Milwaukee County Transit System Hits the Runway Celebrating 414 Day
  • Milwaukee’s Fresh Coast Jazz Festival Blends World-Class Talent and Community Impact


Connect With Us

Become Our Fan On Facebook
Find Us On Facebook


Follow Us On Twitter
Follow Us On Twitter

Editorials

Karma Chavez
Amanda Zhang
Julianne Malveaux
Benjamin Chavis
George Curry

Journalists

Jacklin Bolduan
Brianna Rae
Aarushi Agni
Rob Franklin
Claire Miller

Topics

Brown Girl Green $
Young Gifted & Black
Universally Speaking
Ask Progress
Civil Rights

Topics

Police Shooting
Police Brutality
Black Lives Matter
NAACP
Racism

Politicians

Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
Gwen Moore
Paul Soglin
Scott Walker

Contact Us

Phone:
414-449-4860

Copyright © 2025 Courier Communications. All Rights Reserved.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.