To: Board of Supervisors
Department or Agency Name(s): Office of Equity
Staff Name and Phone Number: Alegría De La Cruz, 707-565‐8709
Vote Requirement: Majority
Supervisorial District(s): Countywide
Title:
Title
Amendment of the Office of Equity’s Department Allocation List to Reflect Adding a 1.0 Full-time, Time-limited Departmental Analyst
End
Recommended Action:
Recommended action
Adopt Resolution adding 1.0 Time-Limited Full-Time Equivalent position (ending June 30, 2025) to the Office of Equity.
end
Executive Summary:
The Office of Equity requests to add one full-time, time-limited Department Analyst to manage contracts and implement resulting recommendations related to the County’s American Rescue Plan Act investments in Cultural Responsiveness through June 30, 2025. Due to the additional funds received pursuant to American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) with no corresponding staff increases, there isn’t adequate staffing to support the work needed to contract with consultants for the development of a Community Engagement Plan and a Language Access Policy and Plan, as well as for consultants to conduct community engagement and policy development to support the County’s development of infrastructure to support equitable and culturally responsive disaster response and recovery efforts. This additional support will ensure capacity to meet the Board’s ARPA goals of successful implementation of the multiple ARPA projects that institutionalize important improvements made during the COVID-19 pandemic and to support an equitable recovery.
As part of the previously approved ARPA investments, two (2) time-limited Department Analysts were added to Office of Equity, but those two positions - a Social Justice and Racial Equity Data Analyst and a Community Engagement Analyst - were focused on developing and implementing an allocation process grounded in equity principles and data, providing technical assistance, contracting monitoring data collection, creating an intentional learning community, and continued community engagement, but not on managing any of the investments made during the process.
Discussion:
Need:
The Office of Equity (Office) was created in summer of 2020 to propel the County’s equity efforts forward and be the central hub to connect County departments and the County’s overall efforts to evaluate its policies, programs, and services. Since the Office was created, the demand for Equity support in the community and organization has grown significantly through various programs and funding opportunities provided by the County. The American Rescue Plan Act Community Investment program and Strategic Plan Year 1 Implementation Fund allocated funding to the Office of Equity to execute projects related to the Core Team, community engagement, language access policy, and disaster response. The original staffing allocated in 2020 was a Director, Program Manager, and Administrative Aide. This level of staffing is proving to be insufficient to handle the increased workload of the office.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law on March 11, 2021 and dedicated federal Recovery Funds to provide direct assistance to individuals and communities most impacted by COVID-19. The legislation has a clear intent of serving low-income communities and communities of color, well emphasized by this statement taken directly from the law: “While the pandemic has affected communities across the country, it has disproportionately impacted low-income families and communities of color and has exacerbated systemic health and economic inequities. Recovery Funds allow for a broad range of uses to address the disproportionate public health and economic impacts of the crisis on the hardest-hit communities, populations, and households.” Sonoma County was allocated nearly $96 million under this legislation, and throughout this process your Board has embraced the spirit of the legislation. To this end, your Board awarded $1,070,000 to the Office of Equity ($710,000 for Community Engagement analysis and Language Access initiatives and $360,000 (with leadership and partnership from Department of Emergency Management, Community Organizations Activated During Disaster (COAD), and COVID-19 Urgent Response and Aid (CURA)) to work to develop County Cultural Responsiveness in Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery efforts.
Your Board adopted a Five-Year Strategic Plan on March 2, 2021 with 5 pillars that are Healthy and Safe Communities, Organizational Excellence, Racial Equity and Social Justice, Climate Action and Resiliency, and Resilient Infrastructure. The Office of Equity is a leading department for the Racial Equity and Social Justice Pillar that seeks to “Achieve racial equity in County service provision and ensure a workforce reflective of the community we serve.” On February 1, 2022, the Board allocated $5 million for department and agency funding requests for the Year 1 Strategic Plan Implementation. The Office of Equity was awarded $540,000 for support to facilitate and maintain an Equity Core Team Steering Committee to support the creation of the Racial Equity Action Plan ($240,000) and to cover associated costs for leading a culturally and linguistically competent community engagement process ($300,000).
The Office of Equity’s current staffing capacity cannot adequately oversee this additional work without additional staff. This additional allocation of a 1.0 Time-Limited FTE Department Analyst, which is predominantly funded through resources already assigned by the Board to the Office of Equity, is required to ensure successful implementation of your Board’s investments in the County’s cultural responsiveness.
Cost & Funding:
The total cost for the 1.0 Time-Limited Department Analyst from December 2022 through June of 2025 (~2.5 years) is $453,029. The Office of Equity has identified previously allocated funding to apply towards the costs of the position in the amount of $299,819. The funding requests illustrated above to the American Rescue Plan Act Community Investment program and Year 1 Strategic Plan Implementation included an administrative overhead for department costs. The
Office is proposing to use this administrative overhead funding for the Time-Limited Department Analyst. This is sufficient funding for two thirds of the position. The Office worked with the County Administrator to solve the remaining funding gap. What is being proposed for the gap is to monitor the costs associated with the position and determine a funding source for the final year during the development of the Fiscal Year 2024-25 Recommended Budget. Potential funding sources could be remaining ARPA funds or General Fund allocated during the development of the FY 2024-25 budget.
|
Cost Type |
FY22-23 (Dec-Jun) |
FY23-24 |
FY24-25 |
Total Cost |
|
1.0 FTE Department Analyst: ARPA contract manager. |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$184,531 |
$ 453,029 |
|
Funding available (re-direct from contract services to contract management) |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$31,321 |
$ 299,819 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Additional Funding Needed |
$(0) |
$(0) |
$153,210 |
$153,210 |
Duties & Responsibilities of the Time-Limited Department Analyst Contract Manager:
• Manage ARPA contracts to further investments in culturally responsive language access and community engagement policies and plans and disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
• Technical Assistance on performance measures, data collection tools and data collection
- Provide guidance on data collection tools to collect data for Performance Measures
- Provide technical assistance for data entry (Apricot, webform, Clear Impact, other)
• Participate in Human Services-lead Turn the Curve conversations with community partners to support successful delivery of partners’ contracted deliverable
• Support contractors and act as liaison between program lead for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery project
• Support contractors and manage two County-wide Plan and Policy development efforts
• Collect data and complete reports for Auditor Controller office to submit to Federal Treasury associated with Office of Equity federally funded expenses
• Manage timelines and deadlines with contractors to ensure data is received for required reporting
Strategic Plan:
This item directly supports the County’s Five-year Strategic Plan and is aligned with the following pillar, goal, and objective.
Pillar: Healthy and Safe Communities
Goal: Goal 1: Expand integrated system of care to address gaps in services to the County’s most vulnerable.
Objective: Objective 2: Identify gaps in the Safety Net system of services and identify areas where departments can address those gaps directly, and seek guidance from the Board when additional resources and/or policy direction is needed.
Pillar: Healthy and Safe Communities
Goal: Goal 2: Establish equitable and data-driven distribution of services
Objective: Objective 2: Collaborate with community members and stakeholder groups to develop racial equity strategies for County emergency response, economic recovery and resiliency planning efforts.
Pillar: Racial Equity and Social Justice
Goal: Goal 4: Engage community members and stakeholder groups to develop priorities and to advance racial equity.
Objective: Objective 2: Invest in an ongoing and continually developing racial equity learning program, including understanding the distinction between institutional, structural, interpersonal, and individual racism, for County leadership and staff by end of 2021.
Pillar: Racial Equity and Social Justice
Goal: Goal 4: Engage community members and stakeholder groups to develop priorities and to advance racial equity.
Objective: Objective 3: Begin implementing strategies for regular community engagement to guide racial equity efforts.
Prior Board Actions:
12/14/21: File # 2021‐1386, Provided direction for funding on County items and approved Community Investment funding areas and funding amount.
11/2/21: File # 2021‐1197, Received ARPA Funding Plan implementation update and provided staff direction for 12/14/21 meeting; received presentation and reports on COVID‐19 economic impact from Dr. Rob Eyler and Dr. Marlene Orozco; authorized the Director of the Human Services Department to execute a contract with the selected vendor from the RFP for Enterprise Resource Planning System process to support compliance with ARPA ‐funded county programs.
7/27/21: File # 2021‐0730, Received an update on Community Funding portion of ARPA implementation and allocated additional resources for ARPA implementation
Fiscal Summary
|
Expenditures |
FY 22-23 Adopted |
FY23-24 Projected |
FY 24-25 Projected |
|
Budgeted Expenses |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$184,531 |
|
Additional Appropriation Requested |
|
|
|
|
Total Expenditures |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$184,531 |
|
Funding Sources |
|
|
|
|
General Fund/WA GF |
|
|
|
|
State/Federal |
|
|
|
|
Fees/Other |
|
|
|
|
Use of Fund Balance |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$184,531 |
|
Contingencies |
|
|
|
|
Total Sources |
$92,754 |
$175,744 |
$184,531 |
Narrative Explanation of Fiscal Impacts:
The total funding needed to fully implement the capacity needed to support the County investments in Cultural Responsiveness is approximately $299,819, which will be utilized to help fund the 1.0 Limited Term Department Analyst being added under this request. For accounting purposes, those funds will be utilized in the FY23-24 and FY24-25. Appropriations will be included in subsequent Fiscal Year’s Budgets.
|
Staffing Impacts: |
|
|
|
|
Position Title (Payroll Classification) |
Monthly Salary Range (A-I Step) |
Additions (Number) |
Deletions (Number) |
|
Department Analyst |
$6,251 - $7,599 |
1.0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Narrative Explanation of Staffing Impacts (If Required):
OoE will be adding a 1.0 FTE Department Analyst. This position will be time-limited to end on June 30, 2025.
Attachments:
Personnel Resolution
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board:
None