The Center for Priority Based Budgeting (CPBB) is excited to announce our 3rd annual conference in Denver, Colorado August 5-7, 2014! Be sure to SAVE THIS DATE as the CPBB presents another year of innovative local government tools and concepts designed to position your organization for success!

The ICMA "Leading Practice" of Priority Based Budgeting is fundamentally changing the way local governments are approaching resource allocation, community partnerships, transparency in financial management and literacy, credit rating management, and our very understanding of the modern role of pro-active governance.

For over five-years, communities across the US and Canada have been implementing and evolving our scalable and replicable core fiscal and economic development concepts, and the outcomes have been nothing short of revolutionary! Now, for the first time ever assembled, a robust "user group experience" will bring together the foremost experts in Priority Based Budgeting to share their experiences and pave the way for the "New Wave of local government innovation!"

Building upon the excitement and enthusiasm from the CPBB 2013 "Summit of Leading Practices" Annual Conference, we'll be delivering even more success driven initiatives from the CPBB, our partners and your local government practitioner peers that will provide proven strategies designed to catapult your organization into the innovation stratosphere!

The full conference agenda and conference registration opportunities will be released soon. Conference sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities are now available.

We look forward to seeing you at the CPBB 2014 Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado August 5-7 and discussing all the creative and innovative concepts so many local government communities are implementing across the country!

Priority Based Budgeting is a unique and innovative approach being used by local governments across the Country to match available resources with community priorities, provide information to elected officials that lead to better informed decisions, meaningfully engage citizens in the budgeting process and, finally, escape the traditional routine of basing "new" budgets on revisions to the "old" budget.  This holistic approach helps to provide elected officials and other decision-makers with a "new lens" through which to frame better-informed financial and budgeting decisions and helps ensure that a community is able to identify and preserve those programs and services that are most highly valued.   

The Center for Priority Based Budgeting™ (CPBB), established in 2010, provides technical and advisory services to assist local governments, school districts, special districts and other non-profit agencies achieve Fiscal Health and Wellness through Priority Based Budgeting. This creative and innovative process, developed by CPBB, enables communities to reassess their priorities in order to make sound, long-term funding decisions. CPBB's mission is to be a trusted advisor and a dependable, objective resource, assisting local government leaders who are seeking service excellence, transparency to their stakeholders and a strong desire to achieve the Results that are important to their community.

From large organizations (such as the cities of Cincinnati, Ohio, Sacramento, California and Edmonton, Alberta) to mid-sized communities (like the Colorado cities of Boulder, Wheat Ridge and Fort Collins) to smaller communities (such as Blue Ash, Ohio and Douglas County, Nevada), the processes and tools developed by CPBB have proven effective, scalable, and best of all, repeatable. CPBB has already led 60+ communities through this comprehensive body of work.

At the Center for Priority Based Budgeting (CPBB), we are huge proponents, advocates and supporters of local government and community innovation. We're in the business of assisting local government explore their role in successful economic development, understanding better where public sector investment could inspire a greater private sector contribution and better influence economic health (and clarifying the role of local government). We, like many, are specifically interested in the amazing array of creative resurgence occurring in the City of Detroit. We're seeing Detroit recreating itself through technology innovation, community organization and partnerships, and by implementing many shared service concepts that we fiercely advocate.

The CPBB is a unique, creative group with the philosophy that Cities (and all communities) must do things differently if they are to survive. In particular, Cities must collaborate with their public sector, private sector and non-profit partners to strategically and creatively deliver services.


The CPBB was on the forefront of recognizing Detroit's resurgence when we spent a week last summer in Detroit immersing ourselves in the trenches of critical local government issues, and went straight into perhaps the most interesting experiment in economic development we could imagine: the complete economic redevelopment of a City. As the national media focused on bankruptcy and blight, we overlooked this focus on negativity and turned our lens on what we saw as the building blocks that were being developed to position Detroit for success. Our investigation led to a series of focused articles that were very well received locally and nationally.

Our first article, focusing on the neighborhoods of the City of Detroit, Reversing the Trend: Might Corktown Hold the Key to a Greater Detroit Neighborhood Resurgence?, provided background context on the city's challenges and how entrepreneurship is playing a driving role in reshaping the downtown core and, slowly, the inner city neighborhoods. Our second article, Detroit: Bankrupt, but Not Broken, cast a spotlight on city governance through an interview with Nolan Finely of the Detroit Free Press. Our third article, Opportunity Detroit! Future City USA?, focused on Detroit's burgeoning entrepreneurial start-up and tech sector, and how this explosion of new business development is having a transformative effect on the city. 

When most folks think of Detroit, they typically think of bankruptcy, thousands of abandoned homes and structures, a shrinking city and/or a city in an
unavoidable spiral of decline and mayhem. At the Center for Priority Based Budgeting, we see a city bursting with a strong sense of civic pride and very possibly entering a period of significant redevelopment, economic resurgence and endless opportunities for the city and its public/private partners to improve services. We see a city on the verge of joining the Metropolitan Revolution!

To find out exactly what is happening in Detroit, we'll be on the ground for the next month (March 13th through April 12th). We'll be walking neighborhoods, the downtown core (Midtown), interviewing prominent civic leaders, talking to independent business owners, drinking coffee with the new wave of urban pioneers leaving cities like Brooklyn and Portland to relocate to Detroit, cheering the Detroit Red Wings to (hopefully) a playoff berth, attending the Detroit Tigers opening day game and assessing public/private partnerships to better understand what is motivating these opportunities and a possible Detroit resurgence.

We'll also be focusing on the surge of partner and independent services that are occurring as another major research opportunity. We want to find out for ourselves how these models work, are they successful, is there collaboration between the City and non-profit/private sectors, where more successful initiatives can be gained and what is on the horizon. We'll be following up with many folks we initially interviewed last Fall while simultaneously reaching out to others who are committed to their community.

We've also teamed up with the Michigan Municipal League to get a better sense of how local government communities across the state are weathering the economy and to discover all the innovative practices they've implemented. The Center for Priority Based Budgeting is proud to partner with the Michigan Municipal League for a full-day presentation in Ann Arbor, Michigan on April 9th. We'll be presenting Achieving Fiscal Health and Wellness through Priority Based Budgeting. Register and view full workshop agenda here.

We'll be posting updates on our blog and live tweeting as we gain a better understanding of just what's happening in Detroit (and beyond)! Be sure to follow the CPBB investigation into one of the most unique and relevant local government issues facing the nation today!

Detroit clearly has a long way to go and we want to follow this unique "urban experiment" as close as possible. And get involved in any way that we can! Since our last visit, Detroit has elected a new Mayor, a new City Council and has been pushing bankruptcy proceedings through the courts. We now want to follow up on what we previously observed and better understand what more has been accomplished in support of Detroit's continued resurgence. 

We have historic ties to Detroit. CPBB Co-founder Chris Fabian and Chief Creative Officer Erik Fabian were both born in Berkley. Our father worked at SE Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and the Motor Vehicle Manufacturer's Association in Detroit for many years before moving the family to Denver in the mid-80's. Our Grandma worked for Detroit Elevator for 23 years before passing in Royal Oak in November 2012. We still have other family and friends in Royal Oak, Farmington Hills and Detroit and always make a point of staying abreast of current trends in our native State.

The Center for Priority Based Budgeting prides itself on developing and staying ahead of the latest innovative, creative and effective local government trends across the country. Lately these include:

• The Power of Shared Services 
• Abundance: PBB as a Resource Liberating Tool 
• The Metropolitan Revolution 
• From Scarcity to Abundance: Resource Liberation Through the Power of Shared Services 
• Priority Based Budgeting and The Power Inversion: Case Studies in the "Decade of Local Government" 
• The "Rosetta Stone" for Fiscal Literacy: What Municipal Leaders Must Know about Public Finance 
• The New Wave - A Paradigm Shift in Municipal Financial Stewardship 
• The CPBB Video Espresso Blast Archive

And now we will be hitting the streets of Detroit in an effort to understand and identify what this city is doing to recover from bankruptcy, decades of political corruption and inefficient government service delivery. The lessons learned will be interesting, and possibly ground-breaking, as Detroit identifies how to thrive once again in this  "New Wave" of Local Government.