As finance is the foundation and important pillar of the national governance system, the participation of residents in the core budget process is vital. Accurately revealing the resident budget preferences is the logical starting point for residents to participate in the budget. Based on more than 1500 resident surveys in City J, the work used the contingent valuation method to measure resident budget preferences. On this basis, the relationship between population heterogeneity and budget preference was analyzed by seemingly unrelated regressions. It was found that the structure of resident budget preferences is consistent with the structure of public expenditure. Residents believed that among budget categories, the expenditures on education, social security, and employment are the highest, and the expenditures on commercial services and finance are the lowest. Attention should be paid to the voice that may be ignored during the allocation of budget funds through the revelation and aggregation of residents’ preferences as the entry point for the aggregation of financial consensus. Besides, the threshold for citizens’ budget participation can be reduced by integrating program budget concepts and deepening the fiscal-expenditure classification reform.