City to centralize engagement and equity work into new department; ADA and language‑access positions added

Deputy City Manager Bertha Windisch outlined a reorganization that centralizes community engagement, language‑access, participatory budgeting and equity functions into a single new department to be located at the Golden Belt campus. The manager’s reorganization moves small engagement teams from Neighborhood Improvement Services, Equity & Inclusion, Communications, Planning, Budget, and other offices into one unified department; a new director will be recruited to lead the unit.

Why it matters: council and staff have repeatedly raised concerns that the city’s numerous engagement efforts can appear fragmented to residents. The new department is intended to standardize outreach, coordinate engagement work across departments, create a clearinghouse for engagement requests and improve the city’s ability to scale large projects without depending on outside consultants.

What staff said: • Organizational change: the new department will consolidate small existing teams (participatory budgeting, community conversations, digital inclusion, language access, community engagement) and will recruit a department director. Until the new director is on board, existing supervisors will remain responsible for employees’ supervision in the city’s HR system. • Added capacity and efficiencies: reorganization uses internal resources to create 1) a full‑time ADA coordinator (audit staff earlier recommended a designated ADA coordinator) and 2) a full‑time language access coordinator (upgrading a prior 0.5 FTE role) to standardize language services and support the incentive pay program for employee interpreters. • First projects and location: staff said community conversations (the city’s citywide engagement series) will be brought in‑house as an initial project to build a consistent method and to avoid duplicate external contracts; the new department will be housed at Golden Belt to co‑locate multiple teams.

Council questions and next steps: councilors welcomed the consolidation and asked about timing of director recruitment and whether ongoing projects and budgets follow the teams. Deputy manager Windisch said the director recruitment would begin after the department mission statement and business plan are finalized with staff and that most existing budgets and grants stay with the teams being realigned; staff said they will return with a detailed work plan and timeline for the new department’s early initiatives.