agenda - RichardAlexanderGreen/WorldGovGame GitHub Wiki

The game is meant to be realistic but playable. However, the skills required are those of educated adults.

The following outline identifies the main processes of the participatory democracy which is the background and playing field for the game. The basic concept is that a government provides services but those services must be paid for by the tax-payers who or work within that jurisdiction.

• Initiative - Problem identification.

  • The goal of the initiative process is to avoid a flood of irrelevant proposals.
  • The Initiative Committee considers the community's current situation and may identify problems where a new tax-payer-funded service or intervention would be appropriate and likely to receive tax-payer support via the funding committee.
  • The Initiative Committee is under no obligation to identify a problem or issue an RFP. They are allowed to say "We see no problems where a tax-payer-funded process would be supportable."
  • When an appropriate problem is identified, a "request for proposal" (RFP) is published.
  • Proposals are submitted via a form with the following slots:
    • Title
    • Problem Description
    • Solution Description
    • Supporting Points
    • Cost Estimates (initial investment, yearly operation and maintenance, decommissioning)
  • Providers (Vendors, Parties, and Government Agencies) will need some time to respond. The resulting proposals are ranked in a future session by the Ranking Committee.

• Ranking Proposals - Making the Legislative Agenda

  • The Ranking Committee considers some number (say 10) of proposals and ranks them.
  • Ranking is based on the number of points each proposal gets from the committee members.
  • Each member is allocated 100 points.
  • Proposals that fail to be ranked in the top half (or top three) are dropped from the agenda. (This is a rule of thumb. The committee decides may keep more than three proposals if they think the rankings are close.)

• Budgeting Proposals

  • The Budgeting Committee that defines the minimum budget reviews the original estimates and adjusts the estimate for each proposal that is still in the agenda after the first committee ranks them.
  • The adjusted estimate defines the minimum revenue that must be voted for the proposal to be implemented in a viable way.

• Funding Proposals

  • The Funding Committee members have discretionary budget shares based on the taxing authority of the jurisdiction.
  • Members must vote all of their shares.
  • However, proposals to reduce taxes by not spending shares are permitted in the agenda if such are ranked in the top half during the proposal ranking process.
  • No single legislator can fully fund a proposal.
    • No member can vote more than (say 10%) of the funds needed to validate a proposal.
    • Therefore, a minimum percentage of members (say 10 out of 100) must vote shares. This contradicts the idea of effective committees being limited to eight members.

• Flow and Timing

  • The funding (budget) process decides the trade-offs between all of the demands and proposals.
  • Most governmental units have very little "discretionary" income.
  • To continue to function at current levels, most services must continue to be funded at current levels.
  • New projects or services require new taxes. Example: In Michigan, special municipal or county services require tax-payer approval of an ear-marked special millage. (Routine services have no such ear-marked revenue.)