The City of Pittsburgh’s’ plan to implement a racial equity tool kit into each city department is to launch a program within the government to train, collect data, monitor, and share best practices to combat inequity among departments for services. This would allow the City of Pittsburgh to collect, analyze, and share available city data with a focus on resiliency and racial equity to better understand the distinct challenges facing particular communities and to inform recommendations on policies, programs, and practices that advance equity. We in the City of Pittsburgh have monitored such cities with racial equity tool kits such as Seattle, WA, Minnesota, MI and Boston, MA and have noticed some common best practices we plan to implement into our city.
• Establish goals, track outcomes over time and report annually on the City’s progress. To create results, the City of Pittsburgh should partner with community groups to gather data and individual stories and experiences.
• Establish goals, track outcomes over time and report annually on the City’s progress. To create results, the City of Pittsburgh should partner with community groups to gather data and individual stories and experiences.
• Apply a racial equity lens to all departments. The City of Pittsburgh should create performance plans with each department Director to make sure that the Racial Equity Toolkit is used on both internal and external facing functions and programs. Departments should be required to report annually to the Mayor and Council on the toolkit’s use and findings.
• Establish Equity Teams. The goal is to establish areas of focus such as but not limited to Education, Criminal Justice & Public Safety and Equitable Development to get community members and the city to identify what the benchmarks should be included in the toolkits.
• Increase our commitment to reflect the community in the workplace. A part of each researched city’s initiative was an employment component for more diverse and reflective hiring. That is already a valued focus of equity that our city would like to build upon.
• Create internal supports within Departments. Create internal support teams for each department equipped with new resources and support mechanisms with the assistance of GARE.
• Create internal supports within Departments. Create internal support teams for each department equipped with new resources and support mechanisms with the assistance of GARE.
• Challenge City leadership. The initial success of each model was attributed to how serious each Department took the initiative in each researched city. The theory is to have each City of Pittsburgh Department Director(s) lead the change that will change the culture for the entire city staff.
• Establish an assessment process to review departments’ work and city initiatives. The assessment will help departments prioritize racial equity in all aspects of their work -from workplace practices and hiring to outreach, programming, and policy.