Where's this year's "People's Budget?"

LAST YEAR, Mayor Nutter called his spending proposal "the people's budget" because before he finalized it, he heard from thousands of people who showed up in a series of meetings and workshops. Unless the city acts quickly, that name won't apply this time around.

That's because the administration has yet to announce any plan for public input into the next city budget, which will be presented to City Council on March 4. That leaves the city with little more than a month to pull off the complicated task of inviting input from 1.4 million people.

And the city really does need a plan for engaging the public. Not only is the city budget a document that sets the basic priorities of city government that all city residents should have a say in, but the budget challenges that the city faces are no less complex this time around.

In fact, maybe more. For one thing, we don't know what the deficit will be (a $31 million deficit was announced in November), and a recent arbitration ruling granted 3 percent raises to police, which is likely to have a $80 million impact over the next five years. And that still doesn't take into account the as-yet-unresolved talks for the other unions.

The lack of a plan is also troublesome because the city seemed to make big strides toward transparency with the last budget. By this time last year, the city had scheduled four big workshops organized by the Penn Project for Civic Engagement and WHYY in different neighborhoods. Nutter also solicited direct feedback from city employees and met with top aides to report the results. Transparency is always important, but especially so in times of fiscal hardship, when choices are more difficult.

This time around, all we know is that the city is planning something. Officials say they have "a framework" but have not offered any details. One thing we know for sure: If concete plans haven't been announced by now, the process is sure to be much smaller than what happened last February.

Last year, the Nutter administration was under tremendous public pressure - facing a perfect storm of a fiscal crisis and an early and wildly unpopular announcement that the city would shutter 11 library branches - and turned to public meetings; while the meetings might have given the mayor political cover, it also gave citizens an insight into just how complicated budget decisions can be. That's a lesson that is worth providing every year, not just once.

What happened last year was far from perfect. Many of the meetings were dominated by the city's municipal unions and activist types. Also, some neighborhoods were left out of the discussion. However, the shortcomings last year aren't reason enough to scale it back or abandon the entire thing.

Ultimately, it's up to Nutter and his team to make the big decisions about the city budget. However, those choices should be informed by input from the public. The mayor should not forget his previous commitment to open government.

In the meantime, you can visit www.ourmoneyphilly.com and leave a comment about what you think Nutter should do with his third city budget. We'll be collecting feedback all week. You can also send your letters to the Daily News or call 215-854-5307. We promise to send everything to City Hall.