The pot is each participating Council Member's capital discretionary funds: money the Speaker allocates to members annually and that members 'typically allocate as they desire' (Cycle 3 rulebook). Every rulebook from Cycle 2 to Cycle 9 sets the floor at $1 million per district, and the Council's 2023 to 2026 releases still describe members putting '$1 million' to the vote. Members often add more (District 8 funded $1.8 million in the pilot, $1,985,000 in Cycle 3 and $2,326,200 in Cycle 5; District 32 funded $2,510,000 in Cycle 4, the second-highest PB allocation in North America that year; Speaker Adams said in 2025 she had put nearly $5.5 million into her district over the years). The amounts actually allocated to winners can also fall under $1 million: Public Agenda lists District 21 at $921,000 in Cycle 4 and Districts 15 and 45 at $750,000 in Cycle 5. Eligible projects must be physical infrastructure that benefits the public, lasts at least five years and costs at least $35,000 (Cycles 1 to 7) or $50,000 (Cycle 9 and the current idea map). Cycles 3 and 6 allowed some districts to also put expense funds to the vote for programs run by nonprofits or agencies; Cycles 7 and 9 are capital only, but District 39 funded 'five expense and four capital projects' in Cycle 8 and District 2 piloted $15,000 grants to four nonprofits in the FY2027 cycle. From Cycle 7, members receiving capital funds from the Brooklyn Borough President must put that whole allocation into PB on top of the $1 million; the Borough President gave $1 million in Cycle 7, $1.1 million in Cycle 8 and called 2019 his fourth year. Citywide totals for Cycles 1 to 4 come from the evaluators; Cycles 5 to 8 and later years from the Council's rulebook introductions and press releases, which are unaudited and sometimes inconsistent (the Cycle 8 kickoff said about $35 million, the results release over $39 million, the Cycle 9 rulebook close to $40 million). The pilot evaluators sized the pot at 0.008 percent of the City expense budget, 0.06 percent of the capital budget and 1 percent of Council capital discretionary funds; by FY2015 PB was $14.5 million against $465 million in Council capital discretionary funds. A 2014 Council rules reform standardized how discretionary funds are distributed to members, which the evaluators expected to make PB pledges easier to plan.