Committee of the Whole - Budget Hearing: Community College of Philadelphia [IN-PERSON]
2025-04-29 13:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | In-person at City Hall 1400 John F Kennedy Blvd Room 400 Philadelphia 19107
This special assignment is part of Philly Documenters FY26 Budget coverage. This year we are partnering with the People’s Budget Office to share all of the amazing work by Philly Docs. Our goals are to share what we learn, uplift your voices, and collectively engage with the budget process. The budget hearings take place during the Committee of the Whole meetings and you can stay updated on the hearing schedule here:
Legistar: https://phila.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx
FY26 Budget Center: https://phlcouncil.com/budget2026/

For this special assignment, we are looking for high-level notes of these longer hearings. We’re using a different document template to help guide Documenters in their note taking.

We're partnering with Chalkbeat Philadelphia who will be using Documenters notes for their reporting. Read the tip sheet provided in your Google Doc template for background context and information on what to look out for in the hearing. We're asking for Documenters to attend this hearing in-person. Find helpful tips for attending in-person meetings in the Instructions section.

IMPORTANT: Any Documenter assigned to these special assignments should carefully read through the template to review the instructions and coverage sections before the assignment starts. For assigning, we'll keep an eye out for Docs who attended the Budget Training 101 in January.

Capture to the best of your ability the main parts of the hearing starting on page two, including who the panelists are and some of the standout questions that Councilmembers ask them. Then take your time after the hearing to write your headlines, quotes, and observations – these are the sections you would share with your neighbor, friend, or co-conspirator.

These meetings could run between 2.5.-3 hours.

In part of our partnership with the People’s Budget Office, we will be sharing recaps of the meeting using Documenters’ notes. You can follow PBO (peoplesbudget4philly) and Philly Documenters (@phldocumenters) on Instagram.

Since this is a new type of assignment, leaving feedback about your experience attending and documenting these hearings is appreciated, so we can enhance the process as we go. Reach out to documenters@resolvephilly.org with any questions.
