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 met 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 developed recommendations for distribution conflicts and identified 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 covered 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 could 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 took 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 were 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.
Strategic target
The proposals developed were classified into a strategic target. This combines short-term consolidation measures with long-term development goals and places budget decisions in a value-based context. The guiding principles here are, in particular, fairness between districts, transparency, economic efficiency, cohesion, and long-term sustainability. The aim is to systematically link financial stabilization and structural sustainability. In addition, the recommendations of the citizens' forum formulate red lines (e.g., maintaining the outdoor swimming pool and sports fields in each district).
In terms of content, the Citizens' Forum proposes the following short-term measures: intensifying inter-municipal cooperation, sharing the use of special machinery, reviewing the frequency of publication of the official gazette in the context of optional digitization, making the use of hall and club rentals more user-oriented, reviewing the cost structure of afternoon childcare, and establishing uniform and transparent regulations for the rental of municipal premises. The increase in property tax C to activate building-ready land was controversial.
Energy and self-generated income projects recommended
In the medium term, energy and self-generating projects (wind power on municipal land, photovoltaics on elevated tanks and public buildings, further LED conversion), the strengthening of commercial settlement in the “Strut” industrial area, and the active promotion of residential development through the purchase, development, and resale of building sites are recommended.
In the long term, it is recommended that the number of administrative staff be gradually adjusted – primarily by not filling vacant positions – and that additional services that can also be provided elsewhere (e.g., pension advice) be reviewed and, if necessary, discontinued.
Municipal properties
In the area of municipal properties, the Citizens' Forum recommends consolidating fire department structures, financially stabilizing sports and multi-purpose halls based on utilization and demand, conducting an integrated review of hall and daycare locations, and systematically reviewing the outsourcing, sale, or alternative use of individual facilities (including the Wenkheim Synagogue, Buscher Museum in Gamburg, Pfeiffer Museum in Niklashausen, Werbach cultural barn, old Wenkheim sports field). In addition, the maintenance of sports grounds, green spaces, and the wine press should, where possible, be organized more on a voluntary basis and coordinated by the local councils.
The Citizens' Forum has formulated the following red lines: ensuring that mandatory tasks are performed at the existing level of service, maintaining the outdoor swimming pool (with consideration of cost sharing by surrounding communities or guests), and providing sports fields in every district as basic infrastructure. The principles of efficiency, user responsibility, equal treatment, transparency, and dialogue-oriented decision-making are decisive in this regard.
“It is important to take different perspectives into account”
Mayor Georg Wyrwoll assessed the participation process as follows: "Especially in financially challenging times, it is important to talk to each other and take different perspectives into account. If you have 100 euros at your disposal, you can't spend 500 euros. However, the Citizens' Forum has made it clear what priorities are seen from the perspective of a broad cross-section of our citizens and where there is understanding for necessary decisions."