Spring is budget season across Virginia. In counties, cities, and towns across the Commonwealth, local governments are releasing their advertised budgets, holding public hearings, and formally inviting citizen input before adopting budgets for the coming fiscal year.
Virginia law requires this process. Local governments must publicly advertise their proposed budgets and provide opportunities for public hearings before budgets are adopted. This legal framework reflects an important democratic principle: local budgets should not simply be technical documents prepared behind closed doors. They are public documents, funded by taxpayers, and should be subject to public discussion and scrutiny. In practice, however, meaningful citizen engagement in local budgeting remains difficult.
Transparency is not the same as accessibility
The problem is not necessarily a lack of transparency or the lack of information. Many Virginia localities publish extensive budget documents online. Fairfax County, for instance, produces one of the most detailed and professionally prepared local government budgets in the country. The County also recently added an impressive new interactive budget dashboard as part of its Advertised Budget package, making budget data far more visual than in the past.
The challenge is something different: accessibility.
Most local budget documents are written primarily for budget professionals, department directors, elected officials, and financially engaged stakeholders. Even presentations shared with the public are often highly technical, dealing in hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars. Citizens, meanwhile, may not have the same in-depth understanding of the wide range of county services provided, their administrative complexities, the financing structures, or public budgeting practices as county supervisors, budget directors, or administrators.
Nor do most people understand the financial scale at which local governments operate, having a hard time to contextualize “$5.2 billion budgets” or “$300 million spending increases.” Large numbers quickly become abstract, or worse, are felt to hide inefficiency and graft. In the same way, many residents may struggle to understand why counties employ well-paid professional administrators until they recognize that modern local governments function much like large conglomerates—delivering dozens of complex public services, managing extensive infrastructure and public assets, and employing tens of thousands of hard-working teachers, first responders, health workers, and other public servants.
How do local governments communicate this message? While some local government budget documents still use the old “where each tax dollar goes” graphic, relatively few localities systematically present their budget in ways that connects government spending more directly to the lived experiences of residents—for example, in per-person or per-household terms, or in ways that highlights the value of public services and investments taxpayers actually receive in return.
As a result, even where public hearings are technically open and participatory, many residents struggle to engage meaningfully with the budget process. This challenge is especially relevant for younger residents, newer residents, non-native English speakers, and historically underserved communities that may have had fewer opportunities to engage with local government institutions in the first place.
Different localities communicate budgets differently
Not all localities approach budget communication in the same way.
Some local governments provide only a high-level summary along with their full budget document (e.g., Fairfax City Budget Highlights). By and large, Fairfax County’s budget presentation is highly technical, with detailed tables, and limited effort to translate them for broader public audiences.
Other localities, however, are experimenting with more visual and citizen-centered approaches. Instead of Fairfax County’s rather uninviting and uninformative Budget at a Glance, Alexandria’s Budget in Brief provides some greater detail about the budget. Arlington circulates a colorful budget infographic. Over the past decade, Loudoun County has increasingly emphasized visuals, graphics, and more accessible online presentation formats in its budget communications. This is visible in Loudoun County Administrator’s Proposed Budget Presentation, as well as the county’s innovative magazine-like Budget Story.
These are positive developments. But more work remains to be done if local governments truly want citizens to provide informed and meaningful input into budget decisions.
A budget is more than an accounting document
A local budget is not merely an accounting document. It is the clearest annual statement of a community’s priorities. It reveals what services local governments value, what investments they are making, what trade-offs they face, and ultimately what kind of community they are trying to build.
Recent discussions about a more “resident-centered” model of local government have emphasized that twenty-first century cities and counties should not simply be efficient administrative systems, but institutions that actively engage and inform their residents. Yet meaningful engagement requires more than public hearings and formal opportunities for participation. Citizens must also be able to realistically engage with the information being presented to them.
If citizens are expected to engage meaningfully in these conversations, government officials must do more than simply publish large technical documents online and hold legally required hearings. Budget documents and presentations must actively communicate budgets in ways that ordinary residents can engage with and interpret.
And local officials should recognize that citizen participation increasingly takes place online and on social media. In many localities, only a small fraction of citizens actually attend budget hearings in person. In practice, most residents and businesses tend to show up only when services are failing, taxes are increasing sharply, or controversial issues directly affect them. Yet constituents and taxpayers who do not attend hearings still need to hear from their county and city officials that their locality is working for them and providing good value for the taxes and fees they pay. In an era of fragmented media and growing distrust in public institutions, local governments cannot assume that good performance speaks for itself. If counties and cities fail to clearly communicate the services they provide, the investments they are making, and the value they deliver, it becomes far easier for cynics and nay-sayers to shape the public narrative and undermine confidence in local democratic institutions.
In many other parts of the world, governments at all levels have increasingly prepare what are known as “Citizen Budgets”: simplified, often visual, and accessible presentations of local budgets designed specifically for residents without technical expertise in public finance. Much like Loudoun County’s budget document, these documents often use maps, graphics, comparisons, and household-level figures to help citizens better understand where money comes from, where it goes, and what it delivers. Surprisingly, despite America’s strong traditions of local democracy, this approach remains relatively uncommon in the United States.
Toward a Fairfax County Citizen Budget?
Fairfax County is already ahead of many jurisdictions when it comes to budget transparency and public access to information. The County’s new interactive budget dashboard is a welcome innovation, and other localities around Virginia are likewise experimenting with more visual and accessible ways of presenting budget information. These are important steps in the right direction.
But there is an opportunity to go further by pursuing more citizen-oriented budget documents and budget presentations—concise, visual, and accessible summaries of local budgets designed specifically for residents rather than budget professionals. These documents seek not only to disclose budget information, but they present budget priorities, service delivery, and public investments in ways that help residents understand how government resources affect their communities and daily lives.
The broader lesson is that local budget transparency should not simply be about making documents public. It should also be about making budget information accessible, intuitive, and insightful, so that—at a minimum—all constituents can have an informed opinion about the fact that their local governments are working hard, and that their tax dollars are well-spent. And if local governments want to encourage more meaningful public engagement, citizens need to be able to realistically engage with the information being presented to them.
Virginia’s localities have an opportunity to learn from evolving good practices—both from other localities, other states, and from abroad—and to continue improving how they communicate with their residents and taxpayers. In an era when trust in public institutions can no longer be taken for granted, clearer and more citizen-centered budget communication is not just good public administration; it is an investment in stronger local democracy.
