Multnomah County briefs commissioners on WESP implementation, sets metrics and timeline

Multnomah County’s Office of Diversity and Equity (ODE) updated the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners on April 1 about the implementation progress for the county’s renewed 2024–2028 Workforce Equity Strategic Plan (WESP).

The briefing outlined completed implementation steps from Phase 1, the creation of an implementation committee and a countywide data consortium, near-term benchmarks for department toolkits and culturally specific training contracts, and a timeline that puts initial departmental implementation starting in July and a first year evaluation of outcomes in mid-2026.

The WESP renewal process ran from June 2023 to February 2024 and the board gave final approval in March 2024. Joy Fowler, the county’s chief diversity and equity officer, told commissioners the renewal engaged managers, subject-matter experts, employee resource groups and frontline staff and produced seven initiative areas for implementation: accountability, infrastructure, retention, training, data, evaluation and policy/standard practice. "For the record, my name is Joy Fowler. I serve as the county's chief diversity and equity officer," Fowler told the board.

ODE described Phase 1 as focused on infrastructure and evaluation tasks that would enable…