Budget proposals and ranking choices

[R.W.]

Hello I would like to get some advice.

It has been suggested that my church hold a budget meeting, for the congregation to consider various proposed projects and which of them to add to the budget.  The director of finance would like folks to rank these projects and the most popular one(s) would be added according to the pool of funds available.  (For the I.T. people out there:  Picture UserVoice combined with Dragon's Den.)

This needs to get hived off into a separate meeting in order not to hijack the regular annual meeting (ACM).  (There were more than 10 projects last time I looked, most relating to building improvements.  I think 5 should be the maximum to discuss.)

Voting needs to operate simultaneously in person, over Zoom, and by telephone.  Secret ballots and mail-in ballots are not permitted.  And yours truly is 99% probably running the meeting. 

What would you recommend as the least complicated, most engaging approach to the vote process?  (The voters would be ordinary parishioners, many seniors, some with limited financial and computer literacy.)  Something that won't scare folks off from coming to the ACM a few weeks later.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

 

 

[Alicia Percell, PRP]

Take a look at what RONR calls "preferential voting" which can be found in RONR (12th ed.) 45:62 - 45:69.  It describes a process for the voters to rank their preferences in descending order on a single ballot, and then how to tally the ballot to get the collective ordered preference.  Just keep repeating the process of redistributing the remaining ballots until the number of projects which have obtained majority approval is using up the budget you have available.

Notice that in 45:62, this process can only be used for election of officers if the bylaws authorize it, but you're not doing that, so the group could approve this method of voting without it being in the bylaws.

This is similar to what is sometimes called Ranked Choice Voting which is being used in public elections in more and more places.

[Atul Kapur]

Another option is to have the members vote on each proposed project, yes or no on each one separately.

Then you rank the projects by the number of Yes votes, from highest to lowest, and, going from the top, include as many as you can within the budget allotted.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 11/27/2022 at 1:14 AM, Atul Kapur said:

Another option is to have the members vote on each proposed project, yes or no on each one separately.

Then you rank the projects by the number of Yes votes, from highest to lowest, and, going from the top, include as many as you can within the budget allotted.

I'd add the condition that if a project failed to receive a majority vote, it should not be funded even if the budget has not been exhausted.

[Atul Kapur]

Thanks, @Gary Novosielski. I knew you'd be following up so wanted to leave something for you to add. 😉