Tell your council members to use the Open Budget Proposal Template, a standard format to share budget proposal data that would allow side-by-side comparison of Oakland's budget options for the first time.

Background:

The mayor releases raw data for her proposed budget that allows journalists and the civic hacking community to help make sense of Oakland's finances. Example: http://openbudgetoakland.org/2013-2015-adopted-budget-flow.html

Council budget proposals, on the other hand, are not made public in a consistent format, which means that not only does the public not have a clear view of Oakland's budget options, neither do decision-makers. This is an easy solution that would have a big impact on our budget process.

The Open Budget Proposal Template was developed by Oakland's Budget Advisory Committee and openbudgetoakland.org.