Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Equity Tool
The City of San Antonio Budget Equity Tool is designed to integrate explicit considerations of racial and economic equity into the budget development process. Citywide application of this uniform tool provides City Departments and Offices with a structured way to apply equity concepts to key decision-making processes around resource allocation and assess equity impacts of budgetary decisions.
Budget Equity Tool Design
The Budget Equity Tool is both a product and a process, designed as a set of questions that guide City Departments towards assessing how their budgets benefit and/or burden communities, specifically communities of color and low-income communities. These questions aim to ensure that Departments apply rigor to their program evaluation methods, so that City of San Antonio can collectively develop strategies and actions that will reduce racial and economic inequities in the community.
The tool utilizes a program based budgeting approach, and includes four questions for Departments to answer as part of their budget submittal. One question asks Departments to analyze their overall Departmental approaches to budgeting for equity, and three questions are specific to each program every Department has.
The City of San Antonio's Budget Equity Tool is Designed To:
- Identify whether budget requests advance equitable outcomes for residents.
- Assess the equity impacts of budget decisions for potential burdens and benefits for communities of color and low-income communities.
- Ensure that programs, projects, plans, and investments help to reduce disparities.
- Require all improvement requests to apply an equity lens and apply equity approaches to overall budget development.
Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Equity Tool
For the previous Fiscal Year we used a very different tool, which can be downloaded above for review. In Fiscal Year 2022 the City shifted to a program based budgeting approach, and therefore we modified our tool to meet the new requirements from the Budget Office.