The Cycle 9 rulebook (2019-20) runs four phases inside the City's annual budget calendar: idea collection and delegate recruitment (August to October) through neighborhood assemblies, at least four special meetings for underrepresented groups, informal collection at public events and an online idea map; proposal development (October to January) by volunteer budget delegates in issue or demographic committees with one or two trained facilitators, using an Idea Ranking Tool on need, impact and feasibility, with agency feedback routed through Council Central Staff; an optional project expo, then get-out-the-vote and a nine-day vote week (March to April) with at least six advertised sites; and evaluation and planning (May to June), when winning projects go into the City budget adopted in June and agencies implement them. Outreach rules require three group outreach days and two phone banks per district. The Council's 2023 to 2026 releases describe the same fall assemblies, winter delegate meetings and spring vote week, with idea collection open on the map through November. Rulebook authoring belongs to the Steering, later Advisory, later Citywide Committee with Council Central Staff and is refreshed every year. Evaluation infrastructure (surveys, observations, interviews, barcoded ballots counted centrally from Cycle 3) was built by the Community Development Project, not the Council; digital and paper voting systems have come from a vendor, D21, since 2015-16. Advocacy for expansion was led by Community Voices Heard and the Participatory Budgeting Project (the Cycle 2 and 3 rulebooks list 'lead expansion advocacy efforts' and 'help raise support funding' among their duties), and PB became a Council campaign issue in 2013. Districts have added their own variants: District 22 built its 2023 ballot through a public-safety 'Citizens' Assembly', and District 8's 2025 ballot was drafted by students. Between-cycle system work such as partner cultivation is assigned to District Offices and Central Staff in the rulebook, but no source documents how well it is resourced.