The Mayor’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) celebrates the release of racial equity action plans for 13 City departments.
Background on the City’s Racial Equity Strategy
As part of Philadelphia’s racial equity strategy outlined in Executive Order 1-20, all City departments are required to complete a racial equity action plan by the end of 2023. To achieve this goal, the City leads departments through a cohort of training, assessment, and strategic planning focused on racial equity.
Through FY21, the first cohort of ten City departments participated in a process to identify the root causes of disparate outcomes and implement customized solutions. In August 2022, the second cohort of 13 City departments participated in the process and completed their racial equity action plans. The FY22 departments included:
- Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS)
- Department of Human Services
- Finance Department
- Free Library of Philadelphia
- Law Department
- Office of Criminal Justice
- Office of Homeless Services
- Office of Human Resources
- Office of Sustainability
- Philadelphia Fire Department
- Philadelphia Police Department
- Philadelphia Water Department
- Philly311
Racial Equity Action Plans from Latest Cohort
The racial equity action plans provide a root cause analysis for racialized disparities within each City department and offer strategic recommendations. The recommendations may involve changing internal or external policies, programs, or services. In FY22, the departments’ priority strategies focused on four key themes:
- Reimagining meaningful Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) community partnerships.
- Making changes to human resources policies and procedures.
- Creating departmental culture change through training and development of City employees and community members.
- Improving accountability through data and performance measurement.
Next Steps
ODEI is dedicated to ensuring that the progress made to advance racial equity under Executive Order 1-20 is sustainable for years to come. As such, ODEI has identified the following priorities for FY23:
- All City departments will complete a racial equity action plan by the end of 2023. A third and final cohort of City departments (FY23) is slated to go through this process beginning in November 2022.
- ODEI will support all City departments in implementing existing racial equity action plans. In winter 2022, ODEI will launch a “Community of Practice” to provide departments with training & development, network support, and workshopping opportunities to elevate their racial equity initiatives.
- Advance budget equity initiatives. ODEI will continue to partner with the Budget Office and the Philadelphia City Planning Commission to incorporate racial equity into the City’s budget process. This includes embedding a racial equity questionnaire and scoring process into the capital and operating budget process, training budget staff on how to score proposals to prioritize racial equity, and supporting the Budget Office in hosting accessible community feedback sessions.
