Budget Document of the FUTURE is NOW – Walnut Creek and Artist/Designer Chuck Todd Stuns Transforming Local Government Conference

The Transforming Local Government conference took place last week in Atlanta, Georgia, bringing together some of the most cutting-edge, innovative, and proven examples of successful communities from the US and Canada. Keynote speaker and futurist Rebecca Ryan described the conference on Twitter as “drinking from the firehose of AWESOME!”

Direct from the Firehose of Awesome, comes this story…

Walnut Creek, California’s Lorie Tinfow and Liz Payne along with graphic artists Chuck Todd presented the City’s efforts to communicate their work in Priority Based Budgeting to a standing room only audience. (We’ll be announcing over the next few weeks that Walnut Creek’s Lorie Tinfow will be presenting their case study in full detail at the PBB Conference this July in Washington DC) To say the room was captivated would be an understatement. In fact, according to one reaction from the Wisconsin City/County Manager’s Group on LinkedIn, “Their presentation and concept of the budget document of the future was phenomenal!”

The following comes directly from visual visual journalist Chuck Todd, the artist behind the stunning PBB graphic:

“As a visual journalist on the project I was brought in to find visual ways to tell the story. And in the presentation I got to discuss what a visual journalist does and the process of working on the publication, cover and the Priority Based Budgeting infographic. A visual journalist takes complex information, data and ideas and turns it into a visual story….focusing on key messages and what is important to connect to the reader. Visual Journalism is visual reporting using illustration, infographics, design and/or sequential art.

Priority Based Budgeting is a process where a city establishes goals and with input from The City Council, city staff and citizens rank programs and spending in how well they met the goals. It is new, innovative way for cities to aproach budgets and the city of Walnut Creek is one of the first to embrace the process. 

The graphic and publication has been well received by the citizens in Walnut Creek and has garnered national attention. It was a great honor to be asked to give out “Think Outside the Bar Chart!” presentation at the TLG conference.  I’m including here the cover and a two-page spread from the Budget Story.

It was a great experience and I even got to meet the folks who came up with the idea of Priority Based Budgeting. Getting compliments from them on how well the graphic described the process was high praise indeed!”

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