Budget crisis: ‘Keeping the dialogue open’
For the first time in Germany, a local council is seeking advice from a randomly selected Citizens' Forum on how to draw up the municipal budget. The mini-public in the Baden-Württemberg municipality of Werbach is to meet three times between 14 January and 10 February 2026 to develop criteria that can help the local council with difficult budget decisions. In addition, the Citizens' Forum will develop recommendations for distribution conflicts and identify savings opportunities from the citizens' perspective.
Like many municipalities, the municipality of Werbach is facing financial challenges. Difficult decisions are pending in the upcoming budget negotiations. On the one hand, measures to secure the budget are being discussed. These would mean cuts in the area of voluntary services. On the other hand, decisions must be made about the importance of the few available resources for (re)distribution. The question remains as to which criteria should guide these decisions.
Dialogic collection of topics
In preparation for the citizens' forum, a dialogic collection of topics with various interest groups took place on 3 December 2025. The collection of topics is the first phase of what is known as dialogic citizen participation. This form of citizen participation focuses on opinion-forming. The aim is to identify all aspects and then weigh them up.
‘Dialogic citizen participation is about really getting to the heart of conflicts, to the core of what drives people,’ explains Daniel Oppold from the Servicestelle Dialogische Bürgerbeteiligung (Service Centre for Dialogic Citizen Participation), which organises the process. The aim is to find out what is more important to people: ‘Is it the swimming pool or is it the community centres?’ Oppold cites an example from the municipality.
Agenda for citizen participation
Representatives of various interest groups from politics, administration, business and society came together at the workshop on the collection of topics for dialogue. The aim of the meeting was to add to the so-called topic map. The topic map is the agenda for citizen participation. It determines which topics will be discussed.
The Service Centre for Dialogic Citizen Participation wanted to know from the participants of the event on topic collection: Have we forgotten anything important? The result of the process was an updated topic map, which was published on the internet and could be supplemented there by the public.
Financial challenges
Mayor Georg Wyrwoll (CDU) began the workshop by explaining the current situation. Like many municipalities in the state, Werbach is facing major financial challenges. The investment backlog in Werbach amounts to around 14 to 20 million euros. At the beginning of 2025, the municipality's debt stood at around 2.13 million euros.
The current budget already shows a tight financial situation. Current revenues are not sufficient to cover all tasks in full. A significant portion of the expenditure is attributable to areas that are prescribed by law or can only be influenced to a very limited extent. This leaves only limited scope for voluntary projects and new initiatives.
Key questions
Against this backdrop, the key questions for the participation process have emerged: Which tasks will be particularly important in the future and where can priorities be set? And where can the municipality make responsible savings without jeopardising its future viability?
The updated topic map covers ongoing tasks, investment requirements, savings opportunities and future topics. Numerous comments were added to it during the meeting. These include ongoing tasks such as the maintenance of halls, village community centres and swimming pools, renovation needs for roads, sewers, hall heating systems and public buildings, design requests such as building site development, local transport services or new services for young people.
Financial decisions are also value decisions
The contributions made it clear that financial decisions are always also value decisions: What should be preserved? Which investments will pay off in the future? And how can the community remain attractive?
In addition to the topics, individuals were also named who can provide the Citizens' Forum with expert advice, including representatives of the fire brigade, the building authority, associations, schools, churches and young people from the municipality.
Online participation
The dialogue-based collection of topics was followed by several weeks of online participation on the Baden-Württemberg participation portal from 4 December 2025 to 9 January 2026. A total of 24 comments and 379 ratings were submitted.
The Service Centre for Dialogic Citizen Participation invited 750 randomly selected residents of the municipality of Werbach to participate in the Citizens' Forum. Anyone who received such an invitation could apply to participate in the mini-public. The service centre selected 30 people at random from all the responses. It took criteria such as age, gender and place of residence into account in order to ensure that the forum was as representative as possible of the population of Werbach. Twenty-seven of those invited are taking part in the Citizens' Forum.
The participation process does not place any additional burden on the budget of the municipality of Werbach. The costs of around €30,000 are being covered by the Service Centre for Dialogic Citizen Participation.
‘Creating more understanding for each other’
Mayor Wyrwoll explained in a report by the TV station L.TV that the Citizens' Forum is ‘not about us relinquishing responsibility, but about creating more understanding for each other. I believe that, especially in times when finances are tight, it is particularly important to keep the dialogue open.’
The results of the mini-public ill be presented to the public and handed over to the local council at a handover event on 24 February 2026. This will allow the recommendations to be incorporated into the final budget deliberations.