New city ordinance would center equity and inclusion in municipal work

A new ordinance under consideration by the Boston City Council would aim to center equity and inclusion in the work that the council and the rest of the city does in municipal governance.

That proposed legislation, which would pull from existing work done by city agencies like the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet, was discussed in a council hearing Dec. 2.

“It’s about embedding equity into every decision that we make, every ordinance we pass, every dollar we spend,” said District 4 City Councilor Brian Worrell, lead sponsor of the ordinance.

If passed, the ordinance would require city council ordinances and home rule petitions to include an analysis describing how it would advance access to determinants of equity — things like social, economic and geographic conditions that impact whether residents have access to services equitably — and how it would reduce disparities.

Similarly, the ordinance would aim to tackle equity in the city’s budgeting process. The mayor’s proposed budget, as well as any amendments, would include analyses of how the funding would improve access and reduce barriers.

That attention to equity will focus on racial gaps, but also other factors like socioeconomic barriers.

Central to the work, councilors and panelists at the hearing said, is a focus on data to best understand how the city is operating and how it can improve.

“That is the key to this whole conversation, those measurable outcomes and how do we hold ourselves accountable to these ideas,” said At-large Councilor Julia Mejia, who co-sponsored the ordinance.

Understanding and relying on data will be key due to the scale of the effort, said Cathy Albisa, vice president for institutional and sectoral change with Race Forward, a national racial justice nonprofit.

“It’s not a policy challenge, a program challenge or a budget challenge, it’s all of it. It’s a systems challenge,” said Albisa, who spoke on the panel.

In that work, the city said it’s important to consider not just the numbers but the people behind that data.

“Measuring and trying to deliver a better government is complex — but it’s very important — and we’ve been taking a very deliberate and a very community-based approach,” said Santiago Garces, chief information officer for the city, who spoke on the panel.

Part of that effort may include working on consolidating what data is out there. Already, a number of groups, both within the city government and outside of it, have long been working on collecting and analyzing data, but to date, there is no clear resource to identify what already exists or to put all of that information in one place, said Ted Landsmark, a professor of policy at Northeastern University, who spoke on the panel.

Creating some repository or resource that compiled all that information in one place could help better advance equity without having to reinvent the wheel, Landsmark and others said.

“We would all benefit from knowing about that and exchanging data that might be useful,” he said.

Garces said the city is starting to do some of that work already with the creation of a research coordination council that will work to understand what data and studies exist to avoid collecting the same information twice.

“There’s so many smart people studying Boston who live in Boston that there’s just a wealth of information that we could do a better job of coordinating and understanding how to get the best potential,” he said.

Also, it reflects ongoing efforts from within the city’s Equity and Inclusion Cabinet to draw on existing resources to support and grow what the city is doing.

For example, the cabinet runs and Equity and Inclusion Academy to teach city employees across departments best practices around equity and inclusion. In that work, staff from city agencies with more extensive work in equity and inclusion are called on to share what they know.

For example the Boston Public Health Commission, which this year elevated equity and anti-racism as a key pillar of its strategic plan for the next three years, has led sessions on social determinants of health.

The academy’s second cohort, this time of 30 staff members from 24 city departments, graduated on Dec. 2. Mariangely Solis Cervera, the city’s chief of equity and inclusion, said the new cohort will help spread the effort to increase equity across city government.

“It doesn’t sit with any one person’s responsibility,” she said, on the panel. “We tap into the capital that already exists in our department.”

For councilors, the efforts come as the city braces for a second Trump presidency that some worry will bring with it efforts to pull back on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Worrell said that across the country, strides made in recent years to increase equity are under attack in the wake of November’s election.

“This makes it more important than ever for us, as a city, to stand firm and reaffirm our commitment to equity,” Worrell said. “As Bostonians, we have long fought and cherished the diversity that defines our city. Confronting our history to build a better future is not just a tagline, but the hallmark of our success.”

Nationally, following the reelection of Donald Trump, there have been shifts away from equity efforts. For example, in late November, Walmart announced it was stepping away from previous DEI commitments when it said it would not renew a five-year commitment to racial equity set up in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd and would no longer give priority treatment to suppliers based on race or gender.

Solis Cervera said that despite any changes in the national political landscape, the city will continue to prioritize efforts to make sure that residents have fair access to services.

“Regardless of the national environment we find ourselves in, we remain committed to the work of building a home for everybody here in Boston,” she said.

That attitude is reflected in historical legacy, said Landsmark, who has worked with previous city administrations on equity-focused efforts.

“We’re at a moment in the city’s history where a number of external forces are at a place that would lead some folks to be very pessimistic about how far we can go in terms of achieving social and racial and economic equity within the city,” he said. “I would say that our past successes are a harbinger of what we can accomplish now.”

Councilors said they expect to iron out the specifics of the ordinance during a working session in the new year. District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who co-sponsored the ordinance, said that she thinks it’s important to make sure the council takes its time to get the process right.

“Today we only touched the tip of the iceberg, and it’s so crucial we don’t rush this process,” she said.

Those discussions will consider, especially, how it would be enforced and how it would function procedurally to keep requirements around equity analyses from limiting what ordinances, home rule petitions and budgetary proposals are filed.

“Ultimately, you don’t want it to end up being another layer of bureaucracy, even though it’s got great intentions,” said District 3 City Councilor John FitzGerald.

But, if successful, councilors said they hope the ordinance will create positive change for communities across the city that will last long after their tenures on the body. Mejia described it as a new vision for the city that “will outlast us all.”

Albisa, too, said that the ordinance holds long-term promise for marginalized groups in the city, something that’s necessary for a task as big as addressing equity across city government.

“We all know it’s a long-term commitment — it’s not a today-sort of job,” she said. “It is a generational effort, and Boston is definitely doing its part.”