Advocates push county to pilot a "budget equity" tool to center racial and economic equity in spending

Contra Costa County supervisors heard a presentation Feb. 4 from the Budget Justice Coalition and the Bay Area Equity Atlas proposing a Budget Equity Tool to bring disaggregated data and structured community input into department budgets.

Ryan Fukumori of the Bay Area Equity Atlas described the project as a public data repository designed "to make data more legible, accessible for ordinary citizens," and argued that disaggregated metrics help identify who is most vulnerable and guide targeted policy responses. The speakers recommended a soft pilot with six county departments, training and technical assistance and a plan to scale the tool across departments.

Budget Justice Coalition manager Sarah Gerdian said the tool pairs internal reflection questions for departments with external community engagement practices and will be piloted with Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice partnership. "This tool encourages departments to identify and articulate the equity impacts of their budget requests," she said.

Supervisors asked how the tool would work given limited discretionary funds and whether departments would be required to hold budget-specific town halls or use existing community engagement channels. Office of Racial Equity staff said the first iteration emphasizes racial equity because some departments already have related data, and that future versions will expand to other dimensions of equity including LGBTQ+ and disability data.

Public commenters representing community groups and nonprofits urged immediate adoption and urged the county to maintain strong community representation in the budgeting process. Presenters and staff said departments vary in readiness and the pilot will include capacity-building and technical assistance.

Next steps: the county will pilot the tool with a small cohort of departments, coordinate training and report back on implementation details for the FY25-26 budget cycle.