The visible price was $200,000 for the Participatory Budgeting Project and the Cycle 1 process, then three full-time limited-term City positions from 2013 onward, all charged to Measure B; no document gives the annual staff cost, and the Cycle 3 report's $27 and $9 per assembly attendee are the only unit costs. The larger cost was unpaid: 115, 111 and 74 delegates in Cycles 1 to 3 spent up to nine months turning ideas into grant-style proposals with contractor bids and partner documents, and the Cycle 2 report warns that overburdening volunteers with bureaucracy drives drop-out while making proposals too simple creates implementation obstacles. Delegates with education and time were over-represented, so the heaviest time cost fell on those who could bear it and thinned out lower-income and non-native English speakers. Political capital was spent from the start (a 4-3 vote, the Mayor's concern that PB would divert Measure B from its promised uses, council critics of the cost and the new hires) and every year in the budget, which is where the pot fell from $3.28 million to $1 million. Officials gave up discretion over a slice of new revenue and the certainty of quick delivery: some Cycle 1 projects took 12 months to reach contract and five were unfinished two years on, and the Fire Department covered the $185,447 gap on a partially funded rescue vehicle from its own budget.