Good morning everyone. I like to call our racial equity committee to order at 11.03.

Madame Clerk. Can you call roll to establish quorum?

Councillor Mevers, telemantees, Councillor Mevers, Gettah, Gennins and Chair Vang.

Mayor Pro Tem, would you help us lead this meeting with the Atlantic and the Pledge of Allegiance?

Thank you, Chair. Please rise for the opening acknowledgments

in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous people and tribal lands. To the original people of

this land, the Nisanan people, the southern Maidu, the valley and plains, the Puthwin and

Wintun people, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized

tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk

beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the active practice

of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous people's history, contributions

and lives. Right, face the flag. Absolute Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for

which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, would liberty to choose this for all.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, Gera. Happy Tuesday, everyone. I also want to take this moment to say

happy woman history month to all of you as well. Okay, we have one item on consent, Madame

Clerk, do we have any comments on this item? I have no speakers on this item. Okay, no

speaker. Is there a motion on the floor? Move by Vice Mayor Talamantes. Second by Council

Member Jennings, please call the vote. Council Member Talamantes, Council Member Gera,

Council Member Jennings. Yes. And Chair Ving. Yes. Passes unanimously. All right, thank

you so much. Next, we move to discussion calendar. Actually, public comments.

Oh, no, we'll go to discussion calendar. So item number two, score initiative. I believe

on me, we'll be kicking it off. Are racial equity aligns will be kicking it off? Yeah.

Yes. And I believe we have Jesse on Zoom, who will also be part of the presentation as well.

Great. Thank you. And this is a presentation from the racial equity aligns and raise forward

on their multi-year score initiative that they're working co-working with the city on this.

And it's their update on the score initiative. The floor's all yours.

Good morning, folks. Sorry for the slight delay there. My name is Jesse Villalobos, and

I am the senior director for place-based strategies that raise forward. And thank you for having

raised forward here today to help lay out the presentation for which the racial equity

aligns leaders will be kind of taking up the conversation with your committee. Appreciation

to council member Vang, chair of the committee, and also to council member Jennings. And welcome

to council member Telemontes. And welcome to welcome back to council member Kara. I know

it's instrumental in early parts of the sport. And I'll say for raised forward, we'd

forward to looking at the wall and to welcome the new members to the point. I have a few slides

that I want to lay out just to support the content for today's report out. As many of you know,

much of the work that was laid out in the score initiative, the body of work that the city

agreed to the race forward to facilitate in 2023 has committed much of it, both of it, excuse me.

And this particular presentation is focused on the recently submitted December report to

the city, which is one of the deliverables around the concept of community partnership and

accountability. And understanding that this framework is really at the center of how this work,

this racial equity work with the city and the community should be approached. And so I want

to lay out a little bit of information on that just to say that this report was created in

partnership with the racial equity alliance and the racial equity council. Residents of

community members and coalition of community groups. Next slide, please.

And just a bit about raised forward. Again, we've been working collaboration with you all.

For a few years now and actually the seeds were planted, I believe, in 2019 for this work. And so

we're very proud of the direction that the city has taken and also just the incredible commitments

and expertise and brilliance of residents and community members. A race forward

to mission is to support communities and public institutions, such as local government to achieve

a just multiracial democratic society through governance at advanced racial justice. And really

want to stress the fact that we understand that now for generations, folks in Sacramento,

your parents, your grandparents and others in the community have fought to make sure that

the issue of racism and race and racial justice is at the center of the work of the city.

Looking back on historical policies that have helped to create the inequities that folks experience

in Sacramento. And so understanding that the commitment that's come from the city is directly

a response to that. And as we consider our current political climate, the threats to our

important work or racial equity, it's more important than ever that our government stands

side by side with residents and to protect the imperfect, though important structures,

practices that have been created for racial equity. And so just want to encourage you,

expect you to continue in that light. And in fact, it's a really double down on the

support for racial equity. It's going to be critical to do that in the coming months and years.

Next slide, please. And just a little bit about the racial equity alliance,

you all are familiar with racial equity alliance. It's a multi-racial alliance of local groups,

organizations, leaders who are united in the vision for racial equitable Sacramento.

And the vision there is where all communities are valued, have collected power to lead the

solutions to the inequities that they face. But we're also all thrive and not just survive.

And also where our culture of racial solidarity contributes to building a truly just

multi-racial democracy to benefit all Sacramento. And just to stress that without a multi-racial

just democracy, there really is no democracy. Next slide, please.

What's the focus now on the actual report that was submitted by the racial equity alliance and

race forward a couple months back? And the focus of this particular report is the concept of

community partnership and accountability. And next slide, a little bit about kind of some of the

goals and aims of this report, some body of work. It's really designed to promote and seed

ways to approach collaboration between government and community. It's also about

killing back the layers to better understand

and power and power and resources can be shared to actually achieve mutual goals from community

and government to move away from kind of the only adversarial relationships that we see

historically and still in many of our communities between government and communities.

And to actually look at what's been done, what's been achieved, both locally and nationally.

In this area, but what can be achieved particularly in Sacramento? It's about focusing on

repairing relationships, repairing relationships between communities of color in particular

and repairing trust and understanding that trust is going to be critical in terms of

resident-stilling ownership and investment in their government. Third, the report is designed

to offer promising practices and learnings to elevate community voice and participation

in governance of the city. Next slide, please. And finally, just a little bit on the structure

of the report. And however, I hope that all of you have had the opportunity to take a couple

of scans as a report. I want to encourage you to take a deeper look. I know that the racial

likely alliance is open to having follow-up conversations with you about ways that you see

opportunity to stick leadership in this work for community partnership. And so we'll welcome that.

But the structure is starts with kind of an introduction and then the methodology,

kind of all of the actions and strategies that went into creating this report. And those took shape

over the course of a couple of years in particular. And they culminated last summer.

Many of you will remember or a couple of you will remember at least the

community listening sessions on racial equity that were held throughout last July,

August and Sacramento around the city by the racial equity alliance and collaboration with

various city offices and council offices. And then finally, the report closes with recommendations

for the city on how to deepen community partnership practices, how to embed those,

to center those, particularly as we look forward to the work ahead. And next slide, please.

And looking ahead, the opportunities to implement community partnership and really deepen that

practice in the city are bound. And in particular, thinking about policies, transforming culture,

transforming procedures at the city so that residents feel more connected, more ownership,

and that they can build toward racial equity. Secondly, this report and implementation of some

of the recommendations supports the city and community partners in the future work. And really

that future work is a current work. It's the work that's ahead of us this year. And it's about

utilizing racial equity assessment tools and decisions. And I'm thinking in particular,

the budget, right? This is kind of the conversation now. But also developing a racial equity action

plan for Sacramento, which is detailed in the recent resolution. And there are many other actions

that stem from the recently passed racial equity resolution in December that would be served

and kind of are predicated on this partnership model. So with that, I'd like to pass it over to

some of the R.E.A members or their analysis and input in presenting on this report. Thank you.

Hello, racial equity committee members. I'm Kaui Tao. And I am a member of the community

partnership and accountability work group that was delayed in planning and implementing the listening

sessions, as well as the group supporting race forward and putting together the report that you

all see today. And I want to first uplift all the labor of the Alliance since the score initiative

first started. So for example, my work group alone met on last summer. Our work group alone met

almost every week in the evening. And that doesn't include the additional time spent for in-person

outreach or site visits and set up. And even for me, there was a moment where I had to step back

because the work was taking such a toll on me. But thankfully, with the structure that we have

with the Alliance, Alliance members were able to step in and continue to move the work forward.

These experiences highlight that even though community should lead and wants to lead this work,

we are not in a position to take on the labor so labor to be involved in the city. When the city

has the apparatus, the time, the staff, the resources to do this, so moving forward as Jesse was

talking about the work that we have ahead of us, it is essential for us to continue to coordinate

and collaborate with the city because the city's support and investment in this process is essential.

With that, I wanted to add additional context about who we are because I know that we are welcoming

new racial equity committee members, though I know you both are not new to this work.

And I want to share this additional context because it is essential to understanding

how we have moved in this process and how we want to move forward ahead. First, I want to underscore

what Jesse said that we are a multi-racial alliance. And as community-based organizations,

we understand and we acknowledge how the scarcity of resources and the scarcity that is perpetuated

by government has put our communities against each other. And so in this racial equity alliance,

we are very clear about moving in solidarity. So for example, as a member of the Southeast Asian

community, I felt seen with the racial equity resolution. It was because of our policy and our

narrative work group who drafted the resolution in partnership with the city that we included

disaggregated data for the AAPI community. And so this is just one example of how a multi-racial

alliance is so crucial to uplift all of our communities in Sacramento. The next thing is that

the alliance is community rooted. So we're not just a multi-racial alliance. We actually live

and work across the city. From the beginning, even though we were starting with limited capacity

and resources to undertake this initiative and the listening sessions, we were determined to hold

accessible listening sessions by holding an in-person session in the north and the south and two

virtual. This alliance is also intergenerational. We have folks in the space who have been doing

the work to fight for all, to have a seat at the table, and to have fair access to resources and

opportunities, some doing this work for decades in Sacramento. And I just want to mention that I was

a youth program participant for building healthy communities. And so it's actually an honor that

through the racial equity alliance, I'm getting to work with Kim and Alberto as colleagues. So even

though I consider myself a younger organizer through this alliance, I've had the opportunities to

contribute my lens, my experiences, working with hip and our youth and our Southeast Asian

American community. All of the alliance as not just multi-racial community rooted in intergenerational

work continuously learning from each other. And those are the strengths that we bring into this

partnership with the city. Also, the alliance wouldn't be here without decades of relationship

building, community building, and grassroots organizing. Oftentimes in our work, we say that

the work moves at the speed of trust, and that is so true even for us as community organizations.

So imagine what that looks like, right, in this work with the city. It's rare to have a multi-racial

alliance as this at this scale and at this function. And I know this because I've had opportunities to

attend the facing race conferences as some of our ODE staff have where we've learned about

the work of other communities. And so what I think that we have in Sacramento is truly special and

truly powerful. And last but not least, I wanted to share that we as an alliance, we believe that

in this government decision making, we do have to prioritize those that are most vulnerable

and impacted by racism. These are the folks that our government has historically and

systemically excluded and harmed. We ourselves represent these communities and they are the people

that we work with in our day to day. And so I share all this background hoping that it is helpful to

you all, especially our new committee members for understanding how we got to the community

partnership and accountability report. So what you have in your report, I hope that what you've

digested there, it's not entirely new. As folks of color, we know intimately about these barriers

and challenges like language access. That prevents our everyday people from participating in these

spaces of power. But not only that, like we in our city council meetings, like we hear our community

giving the speed bag over and over again. So I hope that it's not entirely new, but with this

report and having it written down, it is a step for us to hold our government accountable to

operationalizing community partnership. And it goes hand in hand with the implementation of

the resolution. I also want to note that each recommendation that you see laid out in that

report, it does require the city to dedicate resources. And if that is something that we need to

explicitly articulate to strengthen it, we can do that too. And we imagine that that part is

going to be an ongoing conversation. But each of these steps, it does take labor, labor from our

alliance who is committed to continuing this partnership, as well as the support that's needed

from the city. And so now I'll give it to Nia to share some highlights from the report.

Hello, racial equity committee. My name is Nia Moore-Weathers. I'm a citizen here in Sacramento.

I work for youth Ford. We're a local nonprofit here in Sacramento that works for marginalized

youth communities. I'm a member of the racial equity alliance and I'm a participant on the

policy and implementation committee that we have as to the racial equity alliance. I'm really

happy to be here today to speak to you about our community accountability report that we have for

you. I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the districts that I've had the time to spend

in living here in Sacramento. So I grew up in district six, lived a part of my life in district five,

and I'm currently living in district four and have been for the past five years. I also want to

speak to the current climate that we happen to find ourselves in today. It's rough out here

right now, y'all. Speaking as a young person and speaking to everybody who is in this room,

I feel like if we all look on the news, there are some difficult things happening. And so when I

think about the racial equity work that we're doing here in Sacramento, the promise and the value

that it has, I'm really excited about it. I'm hopeful about it and so I'm happy to be speaking to you

about it right now. At its core, racial equity is strongest when there's a convergence and a

sharing of power with community, but we also have to do our best to try and describe what that

convergence and sharing of power will be like. And that's why these community listening sessions that

Cali spoke to you about were so important because that's how we continue to build that new

understanding and we work towards defining what that new shared power is. Some of the key

findings that arose from the support, I'm sure that you're probably already familiar with.

I already kind of alluded to it right, but sacramentans of all backgrounds love their city.

There's a lot of pride for this city right. Speaking as somebody who grew up here, I never

stopped talking about this place. It's two hours away from anything that she would want to be able

to do right. You can catch an international flight or a domestic, fairly accessible, you know,

safe for families, good schools right. So there's a lot of diversity in this city as well growing up

here as somebody who is of both black and white ancestry. It was nice to be able to walk down the

street and see people who looked like me right. Something else that people also uplifted though

was that racism is a present force in their daily life and that city structures and practices

have to be transformed if we want to establish racial equity in the city. So while everyone who

lives in the city who we got to speak with loves being here, they acknowledged that racism is

something that they're experiencing on the daily that that's unsurmountable in a way and that

the only way that they really see a pathway for through that is by building a working relationship

with the city and to be able to have the city kind of acknowledge where the fumbles were in the past.

Right. So moving forward, recommendations that we got and that we built through this report.

First one would be eliminating and scheduling and other logistical impediments to resident

participation in city proceedings and meetings. As somebody who works at a youth advocacy specific

organization, I'm really familiar with what this recommendation means, right. Let's to use an

example. Let's imagine that you are a 15 year old or 16 year old who really would want to be able to

come to the city council meeting that we held in December related to the racial equity resolution.

That meeting happened during the evening, right. Meeting started at five. We didn't get to the racial

equity resolution. What's the word I'm looking for right now? Forgive me, y'all, I'm tired, but

we didn't get to that agenda item until probably like nine or 10 o'clock. If you are a high school

student, you should probably be at home already getting ready to be in bed because you got to be

to school the very next day. If you wanted to be able to speak on that racial equity resolution,

you would have had to know that you need to go to the sex city.org website and leave your online

comment there so it could get captured or maybe potentially call in and do that virtually. But

do you know how to use zoom? Do you have Wi-Fi access? Do you have the necessary tools and resources?

Do you even know that that's a service that's offered by your city? I'm not sure, right.

Young people don't have access to these things. That's just one example, right. We could talk about

elder participation in racial equity and city council meetings and how that might be impacted.

We could talk about how public transit could be a part of the reason why people can't access these

meetings. So these are just a few ideas that were brought forward. Our second recommendation

that arose would be to develop a comprehensive language equity strategy and practice in the city.

This is really important because we need all residents to make sure that they can communicate

effectively with their government and receive critical information in their language. Like I was

speaking to earlier, Sacramento City is a really diverse city. At one point I believe that we were

in the top five of the most diverse cities in the entirety of this nation. So I think that

acknowledging that there is a wide range of ethnic backgrounds that we need to serve in the city

would be important. We could utilize the diverse mix of communication channels to reach all of the

different communities of color that we have in the city. We could hire dedicated leadership to

do a better job of incorporating those community partnerships. Another recommendation that arose

was to foster stronger and more consistent communication practices with communities of color.

A meaningful communication strategy must focus on transparent, respectful, consistent,

and equitable communication practices that demonstrate government accountability. That could

look like holding periodic racial equity town hall meetings, which I know and that I, my members

that the Alliance would like to work towards, we could offer ample lead time in meetings with a clear

articulation of what the purpose of those meetings will be and issues again kind of going back to

recommendation one, right, making sure that we're intentionally engaging, getting people an opportunity

to engage. Another one that I really want to make sure I highlight here is at the bottom of page 8,

audit where departments and city agencies spend their media budgets to ensure they are using

diverse channels and that they're reaching underserved audiences also consider posting requests for

information to better understand the target audiences and equity strategies of various media groups.

I wanted to highlight that one just because I think it speaks to the intention that it would show

the community if city took those types of steps. Again, racial equity is not necessarily about being

comfortable, right? It's about acknowledging that there have been discomforts that people have

been uncomfortable for a while and that in order to move forward together, sometimes we must move slow.

Again, working at the speed of trust, coming into communities of color, being able to acknowledge that

there are reparations that need to be made, that there were harms that have been done and moving forward.

And with that, I'd like to hand it off to my Alliance member, Kim. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kim. I just want to make a note to my colleagues that the actual report was not

attached to the item publicly. And so I've requested for the city clerk to print copies so that my

colleague can have it and we'll make sure that that report's public as well. I was completed in

January 2025 with submitted to city staff, but we didn't attach it to today's report. And so I do

want to just make a note of that to our Alliance members because I'm looking at my colleagues and

they're like, report. So it's being printed right now and Mindy is passing it out to them. So I

just wanted to say thank you, Nia, for going through those three recommendations. I just wanted to

flag that. Thank you so much. Go ahead, Kim. Thank you for that. We didn't know that, so we're glad to

share that with us. I am going to kind of just wrap this up. I don't have a whole lot to share.

I think it's very important as, how he reminded me a few minutes ago, I guess I am the elder of

the racial equity alliance. So I will just I just want to impress upon folks how important, how

important this work is right now in Sacramento. What is critical to this work really is making sure

that we have accountability put in place and we have the commitment put in place, the commitment

from you all, the commitment from the Alliance, commitment from the community because that's the

only way this is going to work. We spent a lot of time hundreds of hours in the last year

working on the racial equity resolution and then the work to get that past was you were a part of

that. So you know what that was like as well. But it doesn't do us an end good if it's just a

resolution that gets passed and it's sitting on the shelf. And I've said this before and I will

continue to say this until we start to really see some movement. We put some real concrete things

in that resolution that we need to see come to pass. We need a plan. We need the action plan.

We need to start working on that. We are in a critical time in our country, in our city.

And what happens, what we do here is what's going to protect the people who live here, who work here,

who play here, who support the Sacramento that they spoke about earlier. And having that commitment

to what needs to be done is important. So what we need to see in working with you all is what

is the timeline look like? What are the dates that need to be put in place so that when we come to

the next committee meeting, we're not standing here again talking about, oh, we need to do this,

but we can actually say here's the plan. Here's the date, some dates, some meetings. Like we need to

get to a point where we're moving forward and that we're not continuing to talk and talk and talk.

But we're about action and getting the work done. And proposing those dates and getting those

things. We've started some of that, those conversations, but we know until we start seeing it in

black and white on a paper, on an email, on a calendar invite, it doesn't exist yet. And so we are

really passionate about this work. We're committed to this work on the alliance side. And we hope

and we, we, about to say pray, we really want you all to be committed with us. This is not us

against them situation. We all live in Sacramento together. This is our city. And so if it's going to

work and if we're going to build it up together, then we have to work together to do that.

We're committed to making sure that we know we have new members on the committee that we haven't met

with yet. So look forward for someone from our committees to be reaching out to your staff so

that we can get meetings on the books to talk to you, wanting to follow up with the members that

have been a part because we need to re-introduce ourselves and to make sure you understand where

we're coming from and vice versa. And what are some of your opportunities and needs and things that

you would like to see? We've already started trying to get a meeting set up with the mayor as well.

So we haven't got a date yet, but we've started that process and we're just trading emails back

and forth. So we're committed to making sure that we can build partnership and relationship with

you all. So as we move this work forward, the folks in Sacramento can see that we care about them,

we care about equity, we care about racial equity, and we're going to do all the things we can to

put in place to make sure that Sacramento can withstand the climate that we're in right now.

But we can also grow and thrive and succeed as a better Sacramento for everybody.

So thank you so much and we look forward to working with you.

Thank you so much, Kim, Gauia, Nia and Jessi. Is that the end of the presentation?

Yes.

Okay, great. Just really quickly, do we have any public comments on the item?

I have no speakers on the item.

Okay, great. So does my colleagues have any questions or comments?

I'm happy to kick it off first if you all will like me too.

Okay, good off.

So first, I wanted just to say thank you so much to Jessi from Race Forward.

As you heard, a lot of this work started before Vice Mayor Talamontis and I was actually on

the City Council and it was actually under the leadership of Mayor Pro Tem Gara that brought

Race Forward here and really begun the work with the community. So just wanted to acknowledge

that, that this work started predated before. Two of us was on the City Council and so really

appreciate that. We are here in this moment, appreciate Race Forward facilitating the relationship

between community and government and also appreciate the community partnership and accountability

report from the Alliance and Race Forward as well. I think just a few comments just wanted to just

share quickly regarding the three recommendations that Jessi, that Gauia, Nia and Kim uplifted.

Just wanted to let you know that in terms of language access, the language equity piece,

just know that that is also in the QSY. I know that we've been in conversation about

we just recently hired our language access coordinator and I know that City staff is working on

internal policy. I also know that myself in Mayor Pro Tem Gara is interested in also proposing

a language access ordinance but want to make sure that we're working closely with City staff

on the policy to make sure those align. And then I also wanted to also mention that I hear you on

working with you as thought partners to figure out the barriers to resident participation. I do

hear you 11 o'clock during the day is incredibly hard. I'll name that. I do know that there is,

there are city processes of the ways in which committees get scheduled and so I will share

that with the city clerk but I do know there are some limitations but doesn't mean just because

we've done it in the past, it's not mean we continue to do it and appreciate you just lifting that

that is a barrier and that's a conversation that I think this this committee and Mayor and Council

can have in terms of a larger conversation and then that might be part of the racial equity

resolution implementation, right? I feel like the three recommendations that you all provided here

can basically also be part of the implementation for the racial equity resolution because

it calls out all of these things in the resolution and so just wanted to name that. And then

Kim lastly you had mentioned you know we passed a racial equity resolution in December. We are now

in March and it's so important to make sure that we come back with a timeline on even if it's

phases of how we're going to implement the racial equity resolution, right? Council Mayor

passed a resolution but it is I would say a collective responsibility city staff and this

is a little different than other ordinance because how we implement this should be in collaboration

with community and so what I also just want to share with the community is that I sit in monthly

trail meetings with city staff and the alliance as well and wanted to share that and there has been

a conversation of making sure that we work with all me and city staff team to develop a timeline and

to make sure we operationalize that, right? Because the resolution was very heavy there was a lot

in there and we're not going to be able to implement that overnight but what we can do is come back.

I'm asking my staff the next next racial equity committee meeting is April 29th and if we can't

make it to that one at least the one in the summer but we need to come back with the timeline

on what those phases are and I'm looking at our city manager Laney to support this as well

because the city staff that has to implement the resolution that we come back with the timeline

with the various phases of how we're going to operationalize and implement the racial equity

resolution. I know this is a receiving file item but that is my direction that hopefully April 29th

even if we don't have hard dates we have a high level timeline on basically the various phases

and how we're planning to roll out the racial equity resolution and those are my comments and

again I want to think race forward for the work that they've done before I was on the council to

help facilitate the relationship building and then lastly I just also want to name because I know

Nia and Gauhi talked a little bit about this but like the hours and hours of work that community

members put in without pay to actually hold these listening session to get all of the data to

inform the racial equity resolution. I think so often I just want to uplift that most resolution

is written by city staff or the policy makers but that resolution in particular was actually

quote written led by community and members of the committee and so just wanted to say that but

I really want to thank all of you for your hard work but like Kim says we passed the racial equity

resolution we've done a lot of talking and now we have to start implementing it in phases and

that's going to be really key and those are my comments I see Mayor Pro Tem, Erragera and the Q

and then Vice Mayor Talamontis. Thank you very much Chair again I want to thank all of those in

the community who have put this work together and also reflect a little bit about where where we

are today compared to when we first started this work I think back then it was City Clerk

Shirley Concalino who was here at that time and the issue of translation services and access

to information and the need for at that point to manually write every translation and go through

everything and the amount of technology advancement that's happened over the last 10 years I think

really warrants the ability for us to move fast on this. A couple of points here that I want to

highlight and not repeat what our Chair mentioned is on the language access piece yes you know I

do think it's critical that we institute an ordinance moving forward but a couple on the

recommendations here one utilizing real-time translation technology I think that has evolved

in a much faster way while it's not perfect I get it you know I think it's important that it

helps us in and giving and going into our more of our fiscal challenges that we'll see you know

being able to look at technologies that may not require full FTE but can allow for real-time

conversation back and forth might help as well and I think back about during the pandemic when

we were doing the outreach both in the Vietnamese the Cantonese speaking and the Spanish speaking

community for outreach to grants we didn't have that level of technology as we do AI now and

that that could have helped. Second recommendation here that I think couple's also with the other

finding what is utilizing a mixture of communication so recommendation two and recommendation three

utilizing a diverse mix of communication channels one I would like to see and we should discuss

this maybe in budget it noted about auto-aware departments and agency spend their media budgets and

and see how we are engaging in diverse channels so in the past I remember we would my concern particularly

when we were trying to get the the rebates for water utilities where we're using the observer

where we're using back then Vita Nelvae where we're using you know the radio community

channel communication channels like you know radio catolica that gets out information to the

immigrant and refugee community or a silent community as well for rebates that they are eligible for

but would not be aware and so and at that time I remember having conversation with the publisher

of the observer concerned about hey you know we we rarely find out about the ability to put an

RP or to apply for this outreach I know that has changed quite a fair bit I do want to recognize

our econ dev team and Lynette Harle in that effort and in fact that has advanced

much more but I'd like to focus on those two pieces looking at technology and then where we

utilized a diverse mix of communication and maybe looking at how we are using our media budgets

and that may be a conversation for budget or not so thanks chair thanks so much Mayor Pro Tem Gara

we have Vice Mayor Talamontis

all right I'm getting myself okay so when I heard from the committee is that you know you're

looking for a direction on what we're going to do or not be able to do is that kind of when I heard

like I've heard a lot like hey there's so much talking that goes on but what's the action

and that's kind of the general sentiment that I'm feeling here so I guess my question to chair

my colleagues is like they came up with these recommendations on what the city can do do we need

to go line item by line item and say hey this is possible hey this is not possible so for example

paying people to participate in public meetings is something that I would not be in supportive

so then like is that something that we would discuss here at racial equity committee or is that

something that we need to give to staff direction to on which of these we would approve of

so that we can be able to move forward you know I think that there's some good ideas in here there's

some ideas that I wouldn't you know necessarily support not just because I don't support it but because

of the budget constraints that we have and I just want to make sure that we're being pragmatic in

this and giving you guys a direction that you're looking for and so I guess my direction to staff is

to go through these individually with us so that we're not brown acted and then maybe come back

to the commission yeah what would be the best approach for that and then in addition I know

councilmember Mayor Pro Temgara and councilmember Maiveing I mean we hired a language access

coordinator and they've been doing so much work on this to remove barriers and so when it comes

to the recommendations develop a comprehensive language equity strategy and practice in the city

like we are moving forward on this policy already so then how do we document the work that the

city is already doing on these recommendations because we also have to give credit where credits do

and that's the leadership of my colleagues and all the work that you're doing too so yes I think

all really great question and I'm gonna have on me answer that because we're tracking it all

go ahead on me so here are my thoughts my recommendation would be I think we need to come up with

a comprehensive plan or at least a scope high level that has particular benchmarks and strategies

and approach that would incorporate not just what is in the accountability report that was developed

by the alliance but also thinking about it comprehensively of the work products from the score

resolution so we really think about this in a kind of three five year seven year strategy where we

can I think encapsulate the current equity work that is happening across the city which we need to do

and it also can help operationalize the score resolution and this report should be somehow

incorporated into that and that be a work product draft that would be discussed with our

alliance members and brought to the racial equity committee for discussion I think I would love to

do that unpacking because you're absolutely right and the recommendations from the alliance

to completely an alignment with as well but I think what I'd like us to do is take a bit of time

to look at holistically all of the equity work that is happening and how do we leverage some of our

resources how do we develop some of our capacity that is not that is budget friendly should I say

in terms of operationalizing the recommendations in this report but also start to begin to think

about how we're going to operationalize and implement the work products from the score resolution

that was passed last December and that that be a like a actual document that we then begin to look at

with the alliance and that it's brought forth to the racial equity committee for input and

direction and if we could do that earlier I would love to have that be done for April 29

I actually would love for that to happen but I also know I'd need to be considered and mindful

of my colleagues on the alliance as well our own capacity as a team and how quickly we can also

think about and be strategic within the city as well so I do actually have a current draft

of such a document that's being vetted right now but do need to talk to city leadership about it

for their input and their strategy as well so I think we can come back April 29 but again I would

love to talk with Jesse from Race Forward to see if there's any support there as well as our

colleagues on the alliance. Is there anything that you need from us in terms of direction on the

strategies to be able to continue moving forward? Well I think that's a great question I would offer

that you that if you could give us some direction in terms of what you need more clarity around

any ideas or strategies you think that we should be looking at. Council Member Gary your suggestions

about those alternative ways of communication what should we what do you want to see in that

overarching plan and even your dislikes and the reason why the dislikes or the things that you

have hesitation about implementing I think all of that would be helpful for our thinking as we're

developing this and if that could happen over that period of time or you know meet with your

council staff to do that that would be really helpful and informed the document. I'll set up a

briefing thank you. Thank you. Any manager? Yeah thank you. What I was going to ask is if we could

schedule time with each of your offices to elicit that feedback I think it's important you know you

probably saw Lynette Hall come in the room and she tells me that she already contracts with most

ethnic media outlets both radio and in print so I think documenting what we already do is going

to be really important for community to understand and I think that's one of the places where we

have always said we need to do better is to talk about the good work that we're already doing because

sometimes we're so busy responding to places where we have challenges or what are someone

specific highlight that we don't always get to share all of the great things. So Lynette when CSEO

OIED presents make sure they talk about that right so we will do that and hopefully have both

some phases and timelines on the implementation of the tasks three and four of the score initiative

as well as responses to this document at least outlining our work and where we've heard feedback from

the committee when we come back next time. Absolutely and if we could have asked the indulges

of the committee if we can even think about having that at that high level getting that feedback and

then coming back again to the racial equity committee I think at the next meeting which is July.

There's a lot to consider even though I have a draft that's that's in there I've just thought of

in talking with our alliance members and thinking in my head and hearing your comments I just came

up with three things that should be part of that document. So there's a lot of pieces if we want

this to be as comprehensive and as understandable so thinking about having that initial presentation

when we really encapsulate try to get all the things and then as more information comes up more

strategies more insights happen that we can also bring it back again at the July racial equity

committee meeting if that makes sense. Yeah that makes sense thanks on me I'm just making a note

and just want to put on record so I think April meeting is a good meeting for high level

right I do think before that April meeting what I'm hearing is that it would be important for

city staff perhaps even members of the alliance to meet with the various offices to get their

feedback I think that's important I just heard city manager as well share that so I think if we

can make sure that happens that would be great and then July it sounds like we would have more

of a scope of that work yeah more details more detail based on the feedback from the racial

equity committee so it sounds like city staff will be meeting with each of the committee members

to gather more detail in response to the recommendation from our community as well to inform

the scope of work for phases three and four yeah and in addition the work products that are in

the resolution yes we have to start thinking about this politically I think because of

constraints capacity I think understanding and have that clarity of what can happen now versus

what can happen a year from now is going to be very clear because there are things that we can do

in really having a clear pathway about understanding that I think would be helpful and I think we just

need to coordinate these so these are not siloed activities but there really becomes a strategy

of the city and we organize ourselves we communicate and that's part of the theory of change from

gear and one of them is normalize organize and operationalize so it's really putting that theory

of change into practice thanks all me appreciate that council member Jennings thank you very much

I just want to start off by applauding you on the great work that I'm seeing and I'm hearing about

I'm going to apologize on behalf of the city council for us not getting this report earlier

because it's a comprehensive report and I've tried to listen and read through it at the same time

and I'm not being very successful so but I can tell it's a very comprehensive report and I just

want to congratulate you on the work that you've done so far and all the work that you've put into

it I'm probably going to repeat what some people are saying and meet hopefully I'll say it in a

different way the first thing I wrote down was what are the top five priorities for 2025

what are we going to get done in 2025 that's the first thing I did and then I heard one of

the speakers come up and talk about a three five in a seven year strategy right which I think

is great because it tells you what are you going to get done in 2025 2028 2030 and then 2032

and so now we have a road map as to how we're going to get to where it is that we ultimately want to

go to and we're probably not done then it's just we're making progress we're moving forward but

right now I can't say with any kind of knowledge what are we going to get done in 2025

right which we're already halfway through so I just want to kind of take all this work and really

kind of understand it a little bit better and then under conclusion you said the journey towards

racial equity demands a fundamental reimagining of government community relationships which I

think is one of the most powerful statements that you have said you've said it over and over again

in different ways it requires a fundamental change in our relationships between government and

community and so is that one of our top five priorities to make sure that that happens and then

we can report back on how we're doing against that I think it's very important that that does

is one of the top five because we've got to learn how to work better together and for me that's

the void that I'm feeling is I'm feeling like I sit up here and you sit over there and you present

to me and then I come back and give you feedback but we're never in the room at the same time

we're not at the table at the same time let me say that because we are in the room right now at the same

time but we're not at the table at the same time and I'm missing that I'm missing being a part of your

team so that together we can achieve a whole lot more than what we're doing in this kind of an

environment so to that point I would love for you to go to every single council member and talk to

council members and get their points of view but I don't get the benefit of hearing other people's

other council members point of view can we do a workshop where we all come together and everybody

do their point of view at one time and we can hear each other and we can build off of each other

and we can make it stronger can we do that in addition to maybe meeting with individual council

members but I think the power of a workshop is so so important because that's kind of what we're

having together but it's only four of us up here my whole team is not here and I think everyone

has some valuable input that they'd like to add to this equation and help us to develop that

one year three year five year and seven year plan so I just right now I want to read through this

first before I get too overwhelmed with everything but I want to read through your report first

and then I want to come back and see does what I said to you today make any sense right are you nodding

your heads up and down or no way Jose so I just want to kind of do that because I think it's

important that we provide that fundamental change between government and community work we we we show

that in everything that we do and I feel like I'm not a part of that right now so those are my comments

thanks thanks council member Jennings um city manager thank you council member Jennings I appreciate

the thoughtfulness around the idea of a workshop and having everybody part to participate I think

that the foundational work that we're going to do between now and April 29 and perhaps now in

July will be really important as a base for that workshop so I'm not sure when that happens but

that will be part of our planning that goes into for the scope of work into the 29th and kind of

that timeline of how we fit it in and when we can have all of the materials that I think that the

entire council would need in order to have a successful workshop yeah thank you council member Jennings

I just want to share with you that for 2025 s chair it is my commitment and I'm looking on me

and the alliance is that we have a scope of work to actually how are we going to implement the

racial equity resolution that's the most important thing like we don't have that we pass the racial

equity resolution and we just said city stuff go forth and implement that's not how it works we

have to actually develop the scope of work there's so many things that the racial equity resolution

calls out for that there has to be a scope of work to make sure we implement that and so my commitment

as chair is to make sure we have that scope of work so that we know the timeline and the pathways

the other piece I'll also share because I absolutely hear council member Jennings on making sure that

we're working together and not just when we're doing the racial equity committee I do think not

think believe that as we're developing the scope of work city staff in the alliance that it

includes workshop with city council when feasible in terms of time time right I think that's going

to be absolutely important and I think the alliance I'm looking at them agrees with this too and so

council member Jennings I want to reaffirm that yeah we're going to do that we're going to make sure

that there is a council workshop where there's back and forth right I think that's really really

important so I just wanted to name that and there was one more thing that I was going to say

but I think that's it yeah so I think so it sounds like we have a sounds like a city staff got

the direction with the alliance of coming back to do some high level in April and then in July

it would be more with details of the scope of work to implement the racial equity resolution

what I'm also hearing that before that city staff and the alliance will also be meeting with each

of the committee members as well to get their feedback on these recommendations as well and staff

will incorporate that in their in their presentation reporting either in April I'm thinking it's

probably going to be in July so yeah most likely in July so does that sound good colleagues sound good

okay okay sounds good thumbs up with everyone all right great thank you so much to the alliance

to raise forward and thank you on me for all your heart and hustle so all right next item is the

update on development and application of the budget equity tool and I'll me your back up again yeah

all right okay all right good morning care holders in the chamber and those watching online

city staff and members of the racial equity committee it's it's wonderful to be back to

continue to provide information and update on our application of a budget equity tool

and also give you a high level plan of some some phases for a five-year work plan to embed a

racial equity lens and equity lens into the city budget process all right all right so just some

background I did include some slides from our last April presentation just because we have new

members of the committee so I will try to keep it brief and not go into every line or read every

line as well just to remind ourselves that the city of Sacramento joined the government alliance on

race and equity in 2019 gear has identified using tools such as a racial equity tool is a best

practice the tool is built upon some of their work and critical questions to be asked and it is

designed to help us be explicit in the consideration and impact of racial equity and want to highlight

that it is both a process as well as a product so that is why the recommendation last April that

it be a phased approach it also will help incorporate learning and training and capacity building of

city staff and here is these two slides are timelines since last August to begin the work based

on what we learned last spring so the timeline reflects work efforts such as refining the budget

equity tool so that it could be placed in the Hyperion system so it could be accessible to city

departments who were completing and applying the budget equity tool the depth and frequency of

communication and collaboration among the finance team and our office of diversity and equity

enhanced greatly we were meeting quite often and through the months of August through the kickoff

in November to discuss strategy and how to communicate how to best refine the budget equity tool so

that it would be understandable and accessible across departments so that kind of highlights that

and that continues on to the next slide where we did see a huge number of increase in those

departments that applied a budget equity tool which is significant if you had chance to read deeply

the staff report you will see that there was an increased number of budget equity tool submissions

and we had also new departments apply it for the first time this year then last year as well and

I will mention those in a minute and wanted to document and we want to document this timeline

because it's really important for us to have a good idea looking back to see about replicating

emerging and best practices so that's why we want to have these these notable timeline and dates

because it will help inform our plan and our work moving forward a little bit about how the

tool was structured why did we develop the pilot budget equity tool well it happened last spring

here at the committee it was a very quick turnaround I think it was like over a month that we developed

this budget equity tool and we did it in the context of the city's budget facing reductions

and a structural deficit so we adapted it from cutting the operating budget in April 2021

report from government finance officers association and the city of Toledo who applied

a racial equity lens in the midst of budget cuts during COVID and the environment physical crisis

there so it is aligned around two major questions service impacts and location impacts and we

really felt that that was a great way of aligning with the city managers expense reduction impact

analysis the one through four being low to severe impact that it would align with the council's

priorities at that time of homelessness housing this calls to sustainability public safety

DI deferred maintenance economic development youth and climate and that it would also provide

guidance to council and decision making and that it would be applicable to the over 250 reduction

proposals department submitted to our budget office the overview of it really quickly again

it is essentially in four sections the first one is about goal setting it helps the decision-maker

identify goals and project outcomes of the service or project being reduced or cut it is to

have clarity of how the service or project connects to city goals priorities and helps to define

the potential reduction cut impact on different communities the next section goes into service

impacts and this section is the first perspective for which a decision-maker could apply the tool which

is would it essentially would the cut reduce or impact the quality of service to residents and

care holders so understanding this and exploring the impacts of the cuts helps to understand

how communities are impacted to what degree and then also even future responsibilities as well

the next section really goes into location impacts and that is to help us understand the geographic

nature of these impacts here is where if you all recall we have the Sacramento equity explorer

designed tool the GIS tool here we're utilizing that tool in the application of the budget equity

tool and you hear a little bit more about that later in the presentation as well but that is

something that we were able to create some infrastructure for this budget equity tool to be able to

have a GIS tool to help departments understand the impact and be able to disaggregate data based on race

and this city income location census tract all of those ways that they need in order to understand the

impact on the city so looking at service and then location the last section goes into demographics

and applying an equity lens and specifically a racial equity lens you must disaggregate

as a best practice by race and you don't have to only use race you can use gender and any of

their other identity dimensions but to understand and disrupt historical and structural marginalization

it's important to explicitly consider impacts and avoid them as much as possible to communities that

are already burdened and historically disenfranchised so just wanted to highlight here in this slide

is the tools again that the city already has that we encouraged in our consultations with

departments that they utilize in order to help them understand impacts and be as specific as possible

so see these are some of the tools in addition to the seed GIS tool and so now we'll hear and learn

from Sarah Morrissey program specialists and sustainability and equity in the department of

utilities and how their team applied the budget equity tool on the SIRRA program.

Good afternoon it's great to be here today so I'm going to be giving you an overview of how we use

the budget equity tool and the seed tool to look into the potential impacts of a reduction to

the SIRRA program. First I'd like to share some background information on the program. The Sacramento

Utility Rate Assistance Program was established in 2012 to provide our low income customers

a utility bill savings that offsets utility rate increases. The current budget is $5.4 million.

If customers meet the city's eligibility requirements they can reduce their utility bill costs

depending on which services they perceive. Eligibility requirements include living at a property

with an applicable city utility service and having an annual household income not exceeding 200%

of federal poverty guidelines. Here are some significant events that have occurred over the

life of the program. In June 2012 City Council directed staff to establish and implement the

utility rate assistance program for our low income customers. In FY 2013-14 the budget was

increased to offset additional rate increases. Then in 2016-17 recycling and solid waste

decided to opt into the program which required an additional rate increase or budget increase.

Then in FY 2018-19 city staff worked with SMUD to establish a data exchange program that allowed

the city to automatically enroll our customers into SIRRA if they participated in SMUD's energy

assistance program rate that uses the same eligibility requirements as SIRRA. This increased our

enrollment in the program from approximately 1800 customers to over 9100 at peak enrollment.

Then in FY 2023-24 additional budget increases were approved to include assistance for the newly

established 2022 stormed rate. As council approved rate increases for recycling and solid waste we

also increase the budget as well. As of January 2025 we have 8906 accounts that are participating in

the SIRRA program. Our fully serviced customers may receive $50 per month in assistance.

Now we're going to move on and talk a little bit about how we use the C tool. With the SIRRA program

we don't collect any racial demographics related to our customers. As I stated before the

eligibility is based solely on the income of our customers in relation to the federal poverty

guidelines. So to learn more about who may be impacted by a budget reduction to the program we

use the C tool. First what we did is we applied the overall community equity and economic equity

filters that are in the tool and that helped us to highlight census tracks where that have the

individuals that score in the bottom 50th percentile of this factor. So the census tracks on the

screen that are in the darkest blue color those are identifying residents where there is areas of

the city where there are residents that are more racially diverse and face greater economic hardships.

We then overlaid that map with our SIRRA GIS layer displaying locations of our program participants.

Each green dot on that map represents a household that participates in our program.

While it might be a little hard to see on the slide we see clusters that are within certain areas of

the city within districts but then also in the smaller census tracks within and we're going to go

into a little bit more detail on that on the following slides. Due to time constraints I'm just

going to review the more detailed maps for districts one and two in the presentation but these two

districts demonstrate some of the key observations that we made overall with the seed tool data

and there are some interesting differences between these two districts. I do want to point out

though that the maps and the racial demographics for all of the districts are included in the

agenda materials and so you'll be able to dig in and see information related to all of your

districts and we wanted the public to be able to see that as well. So here in district one on the

left side there was only one census track that was identified with the seed tool filtering.

Meeting the criteria that we set for the economic filter and the equity filters and we find

that there were 31 participant households in that one census track that is 4% of the districts total

participation in Sura. In comparison in district two on the right we have eight census tracks that

were identified. There are 726 Sura participant households in those census tracks and that equates to

47% of their total participation in the district in the program. When reviewing the maps and the

data that we downloaded from Sura and from the seed tool we were able to see that district two

as well as districts five six and eight have a higher number of vulnerable census tracks but then

also higher percentages of Sura participants in those areas. Additionally we saw more variants

in the racial composition of those census tracks. We concluded that not only with the most

economically disadvantaged residents across the city be impacted by reductions to the program.

The impacts would likely be most heavily felt in the diverse and underserved census tracks

especially within districts two five six and eight. This is just another way to kind of look at that

overall data for each of the census for each of the council districts. As I say it on the

previous slide two five six and eight have higher quantities of Sura participants in the district as

a whole but also within those more vulnerable census tracks. So just like kind of look at this little

one make sure that everyone understands the numbers that are on the screen district one has 31

participant households in the most vulnerable census tracks that equates to 4% of their total

number of eight hundred and eighty two. So I hope that's clear on the slide there.

Having the additional context from the C tool helped us to better understand who might be impacted

by reductions to Sura. These parts of our community are likely going to be the most hard hit by

factors such as unemployment and a lack of opportunity investment and that's why we want to focus

on finding what those numbers look like. A reduction to the Sura program wouldn't impact the

quality of services that is received. However it would require our economically disadvantaged

customers to be responsible for the full cost of utility services received. This would likely

disproportionately impact customers and racially diverse and underserved areas of the city.

Therefore from an equity analysis perspective we wouldn't recommend a reduction to Sura.

For my final slide I just wanted to share our experience using the C tool since it was new to us

this year and it was a great learning opportunity. It was helpful for our analysis to have data to

actually back up what we felt to be true but we didn't necessarily have any way of proving since we

don't collect the racial demographics of our customers that are participating. While the C tool

didn't give us any definitive answers it does help us better understand diversity and economic

disparities across the city and it provided insight on how that relates to our program participants.

I believe we were also the first department to use the tool in this way to provide that visual

representation of program participants across the city. The tool did not originally allow us to

add in our own data and so we had to work with IT on a very time line to turn this around and they

opened up that functionality for us. Both of me and IT were extremely helpful in getting us what we

needed in time for this but we would benefit from more time and learning how to use the tool having

some training and then we might be able to get more valuable analysis out of it. We also felt that

the C tool user guide was very helpful and it would be beneficial to update it as there are more

data and more filters added and then also for us to learn how other departments are using the tool.

That concludes my portion of the presentation but we do have COU staff available for any questions.

Thank you so much really great presentation. Ami, I just have to add a few more slides just

surround it out and then definitely want to open it up for questions for sure. Thank you so much Sarah.

I wanted to just give you an idea of the overview and what we're thinking very similar to the

earlier conversation about thinking very broadly but thinking in a multi-year strategy and this is

the direction that we received at the April 30th 2024 meeting to discuss that. So here are some

major considerations. It needs to be a phased rollout by department. We're seeing departments

already engaged. It's not necessarily mandated. We do need to embed it more in terms of the systems

and the reporting and what comes to council and all that good stuff but we need to really think about

how this would happen by department and their readiness to do that. This could work towards our

goal of the training and the capacity, communications, shared definitions and an understanding of how the

tool is not something you do in addition but it's part of your work. That's where we want to get to.

The other is the capacity building and training. We've had really great deep consultations

with departments on the budget equity tool thus far and we're continuing to do that this month and

and for the rest of the fiscal cycle as well. And so we're really understanding how not only with

the seed tool we need to have user guides but also communication strategies, templates to really

lessen the burden on city staff who are doing this work and really make it more seamless.

The other piece too that I think is really important to acknowledge lastly is the long-term

structural challenges. You all know the challenges and how you all are making through the decisions

to do that as part of the city council but we really do want to acknowledge that and see how that

could have an impact from the structural changes to even staffing challenges. Anything that would help

us organize around this work we really do have to be flexible and be able to pivot. So here's it in

over arching and then we want to build out years one and two and three and four but to describe

year one is pilot continue to refine the budget equity tool and look for a kind of rollout

strategy with departments thus far using the last two fiscal years as a way to do that but also

leveraging those who already have high impact equity initiatives. Also refining the budget equity

tool will also as we move out of structural we think long-term we move out of the structural deficit

into a more balanced budget in terms of that or not facing those because it's always a balanced

budget but not facing structural deficits. The tool will change and the tool will be refined and

take shape to meet our needs. Years three and four is about continuing to expand implementation

integrating feedback and addressing training gaps and then year five is further refining the

budget equity tool and that at year five our goal is to have full adoption across departments

ensuring that equity driven budget decision is fully embedded in the decision making and you

all would see that in reports you would see that as part of the budgetary process and it would be

communicated in the in the cycle. So that's what we're looking at has got kind of five year and

then see now in talking the city leadership as we learn and as emergent practices happen it may be

maybe seven year plan however we know the goal and envision it in sight. So how we're applying the

tool what we're how we're applying it is kind of this what we're learning piece. Sorry let me make

sure I got that right okay how are we okay so we've applied the budget reductions have been

the budget equity tools been applied in the office of innovation economic development

fire department and convention and cultural services for both years 24 25 and 25 26 for the 25 26

year we saw application of the budget equity tool in police and department of utilities. We've

streamlined the budget equity tool leveraged high equity centered proposals is a way to learn and

get to understand how this embedding of this tool would work. I do want to acknowledge

SACPD submitted 45 BET's SAC fire department submitted 14 this year DOU submitted one OID submitted

10 BET's and CCS submitted one so we're seeing more and more budget equity tool application to more

of the reductions that we did last year which is a really great direction and we are as office

of diversity and equity because of this volume we're needing to still go and talk with departments about

working with them in consultation so Larisa and I are scheduling with the police department to go

over all of those 44 because we would love to have see how the application is working within our

public safety area as well and we'll also be consulting with fire. Learning so far not going to

go really deep into these slides these are very similar information to last year they're still

applicable for this year but I would highlight two things having citywide commitment and leadership

mandate to help grow the shared understanding approach will lead to our success. Two consistency

of data collection and analysis across the city is really key just by having the seed tool we're

able to have grounding conversations about how data is collected and what data could look like and

how it can be communicated and of course with the refinements that you heard from Sarah when she

was giving her part of the presentation. Learned so far again the one thing I would highlight is

the face-to-proach really allows for us to adjust existing forms organize ourselves around

technology such as team spaces, Hyperion helps us understand and learn the processes as it shifts

and changes workflow of teams and how each department has their own workflow and strategy around

developing their budget and it also further allows leadership alignment implementation and I

would also highlight that here is again something that we have been working on that could be part

of that overarching comprehensive approach and plan to implement the score resolution which

budget applying and equity lens on our budget was actually mentioned in the resolution as well

so here's where it'll give us time for that alignment and just a big thanks and that is the

presentation and open to any questions or comments as well thank you. Thanks on me I'll give the floor

to our city manager to comment thank you so first of all I want to say thank you thank you we have

no speakers on this item thank sorry many thank you to DOU Sarah that was a great presentation

really appreciate it you can see we are making every effort to phase this in across the city we

have some departments right this year Yipsy was challenged with measure implementation so we

have to look at their capacity of staff I realize you may not know what Hyperion is we have built

an automated system so departments use this system to submit their budget change proposals we

call them BCPs and it moves through the system from department to budget to the actual financial

system and this is now part of that that is the integration of making it something that is done

every day and you're going to hear I can I ask you a question just to feel for clarity so you're

saying that when a department submit their reduction they have all through that program they have

already done they've done the tool or no part part of submission is completing the tool as

departments are trained everyone only the department too we're ready to do it had access to that

portion of the tool I see so we're phasing them in but it is part of the system okay so that every

year as we phase more departments in it's just part of the base system okay so we still have to

train we still have to capacity build with the departments that haven't done it yet

and it is a heavy heavy lift every year we build new departments in but you will hear from our

departments on May 20th the entire council will as part of the budget presentation process

and I just want to share that Michael Dobbins and Lauren Dreyfus who you remember were here

presenting the C tool to you have been invited to present at sort of the national

conference on GIS about this tool to other cities and how this tool can be used in the way that

the city of Sacramento is using it so they are in that way ground breaking and we are I think

groundbreaking and how we're using this tool and rolling it out and integrating it into what we're

doing hopefully now every day for some departments and bringing others along as we go real quick

question yeah what date is staff coming to council May 20th we do it sooner it's we have a pretty

tight budget calendar and so that's where it fits in it's it's equity equity day a council so

we're our very first presentation isn't until hang on

May 13 so the 20th is just is the second one so it's as soon as it can be in the context of

the budget being released and having it make sense in the timing of the rest of the budget so maybe

a recommendation for staff to reach out to individual council members for briefing on how to use

the individual tool the or the seed tool so that people can come prepared with their comments on

equity day whatever you're quite few have questions I'm not so each department uses the tool

and they fill it out and it informs decisions and so they will share how those how that activity

informed their recommendation on what was proposed to be included in the lists that you have

received okay so that's what they'll be sharing with you on the 20th great city managers can I

just repeat what I thought I heard so I just want to make sure that I have understanding so you're

saying that for the department I'm looking on me as well the hat that went through the training

because we're phasing in as we're looking at potential budget reduction or revenue increases

that part of that structural process includes the budget equity tool for those departments that

have already started I see staff nodding their heads so yes yes me the the department to we're on

your list of who were phased in this year utilize the tool for their budget proposals yes and then

the other question I have is did they apply the tool to just a service that they chose or did they

apply this to every single services within their department no not every not every single that's part

that's part of the the increase in the number of budget equity tool submissions was really

volunteer the leadership wanted to utilize the tool that what you're talking about that's where

where to be five years right that we have a robust training that there is enough communication

there's enough resource development for departments to do it and then also you know leadership

mandate council but what do those systems look like to support that so what we were successful

this year is we had more departments take on and apply the tool to their budget reductions

if that makes sense yeah that's really great and they reached out to our office and wanted to sit

down and understand the instructions the tool how could seed or whatever unique aspects of their

particular reduction called for yeah I want to clarify too there may be some proposals that do not

lend themselves to an equity lens if someone says I'm going to cut my chair replacement budget

I don't know making it up right there is no impact to the greater community around not

replacing chairs as often so not necessarily every proposal will and and maybe there I don't know

what's in there if there's an and it not applicable but there it may not lend itself to that well

in in one of our experiences and conversations with convention and cultural services I think I

may have the funds not completely known as this a learning curve for me as well they were doing a

net transfer so they were transferring funds from general fund to another fund so there while it

looks like a reduction right it's not because there were no service or location impacts so when

they wanted to apply the tool they were like I don't think this really and so you could do it but

then find there's really no net impact and you know you probably go through the tool much faster

so that has been an experience that we had this year as well yeah so really great I have questions

first of all I want to say thank you really appreciate that DOU stepped up to the plate and say

we're going to do this right so I just want to say thank you and it was a great presentation

just a few things I guess for me I'm thinking a long term thinking I want to get to the five

year now I know just I want to get us to the five years but I know it takes time it takes capacity

building it takes um phasing in structural um I would love as we're phasing this in especially because

um assistive assistant I'm a current city manager have said that not every item not every budget

item can be seen through a racial equity lens I like to have I like for city staff to present

what those examples are and I think for me I've always off like the premise of like that everything

is related to racial equity and so would love some for some key examples as you're doing the

phasing of like it didn't work like the like the example that you just gave me in terms of the

transfer on me solid right because it was like oh this is just a transfer right but I think

that makes sense right um but in terms of services right I would love to see if there are

lists of items that staff or you know management have decided that this doesn't apply to racial equity

that would be really great I'm just curious to know uh what what those are the other pieces

I think in your presentation you also mentioned for this for this committee and this mayor and

council to consider mandating this maybe long term figuring out but that also means structural

change finances all all of that as well for me I can won't only speak for myself but I do think

that it should be mandated um and I know that when we get to five year hopefully we can build a

capacity I believe that this should be mandated in terms of structural now I also know as mayor

and council we don't run the operations right that is a directive that we give to our city manager

whomever we will hire because we're in the process of hiring a new city manager but that is

of utmost priority for me that we see um the tool be mandated um that it's mandated that it

becomes part of the structure when we are looking at our budget and so I just wanted to to share that

now you know I think that that could be a direction to our our new city manager I think our current

city manager has already begun that work already which is really great um but just wanted to name

that and would love to hear my thoughts from the committee on on the budget equity tool in terms

of where they stand is should this be a mandate obviously we're facing this in do you believe this

should be a mandate um I believe it should be a mandate with a list of why we can't do it right

if we can't do it I want to know what those are and then we can have a conversation about that but

would just love to hear about my colleagues about that because I think there's been a lot of work put

into this tool and I'm so grateful for the departments that have stepped up even last year the

the very I think it was fire yeah office of economic development and cultural services they

they they stepped up to plate to to be the first departments to take on this tool so really just

want to say kudos to them so with that I'll pause real quick to see if any of my colleagues have

any comments on the budget equity tool Mayor pro tem thank you chair I mean I think

this just like any information when we do our annual census and even the the interim

you know national american survey and that gives the decision makers more information I think

is helpful I mean obviously the utility rate assistance program that analyze okay if we were to

eliminate that which areas of the city would be affected I mean you those of us that represent

those areas know already with you know which communities those would be but it does help at least

when making that that public position about okay well well this is you're gonna you know her

seniors gonna hurt these particular consolidated communities I think that's helpful so you know

the the I think there's a fair point about how you roll this out if you roll it out too quickly then

it just becomes another checklist and it doesn't really create the institutional change then then

I don't know if that's the best use of our time and resources so I think the in the future

if this is rolled out in a way where departments and there's there's time for management and the

departments to work through it I see that in the future it'll be part of the normal budgeting

process that informs the council in a way that's meaningful so that's I guess that's my you know

that's my direction on this thanks mayor per time I would be in alignment with you absolutely

phasing I think that's important as much as I want to get to the five year I know that it takes

capacity and time and you know we don't have all departments yet right it's just a few departments

and so I know that's gonna take time so agree with your direction on that okay any more comments

from my colleagues I don't see anything cute up okay I think that's it thank you so much Amead

so good in terms of any direction looks like we were to say go forth and phasing yeah um what would

I say um I think I think it's really I think it would be important and and maybe this could be

some also some future debriefs is that form that's meaningful for council like in the decision

making and certainly we'll consult with Laney as well as you know what makes it meaningful for you all

because I I like to think that everything that the staff does is is meaningful right um but some

strategies and the sense making around this I think is really um important and I think aligning it

with the score work I think is going to make it even more more meaningful because when you start

to see the all of the work happening you really do start to see a trajectory and a movement

that is happening within the city and it was great to see departments we did not solicit

they asked and reached out to us and said hey we're applying um Ryan was great he reached out like

it I think it was like the day before Christmas or something I don't even remember and he was like

I need to meet with you and we were communicating like over the holiday break and we met like I think

the first day of the new year I think he was one of my first meetings of the new year so it was right

on um so it's great there is a lot of that energy and I think I think the opportunity of the score

initiative and the work with our alliance members is to see that work happening but also to see where

the work can be it needs to touch down and where it's still not happening so what can we leverage

what can we bring into both spaces in order to move that work and then also help the staff

sense make it because I think staff as careholders and leaders can can can can can get kind of lost

right um and so making sure that how they're that's why I always try to lift up capacity building

of staff because they're the ones that are implementing this work so it's really key and I also

include your staff in that the trainings we have are open to council staff and the charter

offices staff as well because when we're moving all in one accord this work it can become more

seamless and more impactful so that question about meaningfulness I would love to have it as we

develop the phase in plan with you all so that's my thought thanks I'll be just brought one thing

I just want to mention upon record is that when a mayor and a council want to submit an ordinance

or a policy idea we have requests at the city clerk to put a section where the mayor and the council

has to share houses related or to DEI so I just want to think the city clerk for doing that as well

I do think though I will say I've seen some of these proposals from mayor and council and that

section is blank and so I do think that there's some capacity that could be it's not it's not

that he stopped but it's I'm just saying I've seen some proposal where the DEI section is blank and so

just naming that and saying maybe we do need capacity even in terms of the fifth floor so I think

that's important I just wanted to name that because this is not just city staff but it's also

at the leadership level so just wanted to say that thank you Mindy thank you Mindy we'll be in touch

with you will reach out to you support staff building that out thank you so much yep thank you so

much all right next item is selection of vice chair for this committee I let's see

do we have any comments from my colleagues I do have a suggestion for a vice chair I guess I'll

start off I heard from council member Jennings earlier that he would love to be more involved

with the alliance I actually just texted him and asked him if he would like to participate in

those meetings also I texted Nia as well and Jennings says yes and so with that because he really

wants to work with the commuter on this would love to nominate him as vice chair of the racial

equity committee looks like there's there's a second from a third and a second from vice mayor

and mayor pro-tum and so I'm looking forward to working alongside council member Jennings I know

that when we meet on these items we have to stay within brown act so both of us will be meeting

with the community on moving this work forward so with that looks like there's a question before

you punches up to speak oh that's right oh call it before he didn't so we have a motion on the table

by vice mayor Talamontas a second by council member mayor pro-tum gara before we take a vote it

looks like coach Jennings want to say a few words hopefully he doesn't say no no I've been working

on this committee for a period of time and I I love the work that's being done and it would be my

pleasure to serve as device chair under your leadership thank you council member Jennings so the

motion was made by the chair it's lunchtime like hungry that's probably why yeah and then second

by vice mayor Talamontas all in favor say aye aye okay great that passes our new vice chair

says council member Jennings for the racial equity committee any additional comments do we have

any comments from staff no comments from staff any public comments on items on the agenda no comments

all right meeting ends at 1241 thank you so much everyone