Sancheong County to Improve Operation of Resident Participatory Budget System

Expanding Contest Types to Increase Resident Participation
Strengthening Community Capacity Through Budget School Operations

Sancheong County in Gyeongnam is lowering the barriers to increase public participation, including improving the operation of its participatory budgeting system. According to Sancheong County on the 20th, the participatory budgeting system is a program in which residents directly propose projects and participate in the review and selection process to enhance the transparency and democracy of budget management.

However, until now, projects have been proposed by regional committees with representative authority, making it difficult for ordinary residents to participate and for consensus to be formed. In response, Sancheong County has expanded the types of public offerings this year so that any resident can propose ideas for the participatory budget.

Lee Seunghwa, the county governor, is conducting the 2024 Traveling Provincial Budget School.

In addition to the existing region-led autonomous projects, the expanded types now include citizen-led projects and youth/young adult-led participation projects. The county has also launched a participatory budget website so that applications can be submitted both offline and online.

In particular, the county is making efforts to strengthen residents’ understanding of the participatory budgeting system. To this end, on the 19th, it operated a “Visiting Participatory Budget School” at the Future Life Center of the Agricultural Technology Center.

This training, conducted in cooperation with Gyeongnam Province, focused on expert feedback so that residents could participate more actively and substantially in the budget process, and was well received.

The county plans to allocate 520 million won in next year’s main budget to ensure the stable settlement of the participatory budgeting system. To achieve this, applications will be accepted until July 12, and the results will be reflected after deliberation and resolution by the Participatory Budget Committee.

Lee Seunghwa, Governor of Sancheong County, said, “Participatory budgeting is a meaningful system in which residents, the true owners of Sancheong County, directly participate in the budget process. We hope for a lot of interest and participation so that policies that residents can truly feel are discovered.”