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San Francisco Department of the Environment presents Phase 1 racial equity action plan and timeline to finalize
Summary
The department presented a draft Phase 1 Racial Equity Action Plan focused on internal policies (hiring, retention, leadership, mobility and culture), described staff engagement and DHR alignment, and said the draft will be submitted to the Office of Racial Equity, the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors by Dec. 31, 2020.
The San Francisco Department of the Environment presented a draft Phase 1 Racial Equity Action Plan to the Commission on the Environment at its final meeting of 2020. Director Deborah Rafael described the document as an internally focused first phase that will be submitted to the Office of Racial Equity (ORE), the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors by Dec. 31.
Cindy Comerford, the department—s climate program manager, and racial equity leads summarized the plan—s three parts: context, an implementation template of actions and indicators, and appendices that include a prior staff-generated set of proposed actions and survey analysis. Staff said they compared their original 16 actions to ORE—s template and found areas of alignment and areas that require greater specificity or added department-specific initiatives.
The plan centers on seven framework sections from ORE: hiring and recruitment; retention and promotion; discipline and separation; diverse leadership; mobility and professional development; organizational culture; and boards and commissions. Staff said they solicited input from department teams, a steering committee and the commission operations committee. A staff survey asked employees to pick priority strategies; the most frequently selected were (1) strengthening recruitment and hiring; (2) retention and promotion with attention to salaries and transparent promotion paths; (3) building diverse, equitable leadership; (4) mobility and professional development; and (5) organizational culture of inclusion and belonging.
Shraddha (Environmental Justice team) said ORE—s feedback urged more specific, visionary department goals, clearer timelines (quarterly rather than only year), resource commitments and more department-level actions that also support citywide change. Staff plans to add implementation granularity, estimate staff hours or consultant needs and clarify when actions will be implemented.
Representatives from the Department of Human Resources (DHR) described a citywide review of minimum qualifications, testing, discipline and hiring processes and said DHR is assembling a diversity recruitment toolkit for departments. Commissioners pressed staff on measurable indicators and timelines; staff said the implementation template in Part 2 includes indicators and that annual staff surveys and performance plans will be used to measure outcomes.
Director Rafael emphasized that Phase 1 is a living document: she committed to prioritize implementation, define metrics, report progress to the commission and solicit broad staff and community input as actions move into implementation.
What—s next: Staff will incorporate ORE feedback into the draft, finalize the implementation templates with more granular timelines and resource estimates, and submit the plan to ORE, the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors by the end of the calendar year.
