SJ Perspective: DEI-required budgeting wokesheets waste valuable city staff time
One of the pressing challenges facing the city these days is a severe staffing shortage across all major departments. But, as long-time San Jose resident, community leader, and local history author Tobin Gilman notes, onerous paperwork to meet arcane DEI demands is making morale—and productivity—even worse. From Medium.
As Mayor Mahan noted in a budget presentation recently, the average position vacancy rate citywide is about 15%, and in some departments much higher. For example, it’s 25% in the Building & Planning Department.
Rank and file workers are leaving in droves because they feel overworked and underpaid. That’s not stopping senior bureaucrats and elected officials from piling on even more unnecessary work for every department during this year’s budget process. The added burden on staff is referred to as “Budgeting for Equity”, cutely abbreviated as “BfE”
In this year’s budget cycle, each department must complete a “BfE Worksheet” that requires extensive data gathering and analysis coupled with development of new metrics and oversight by the city’s Office of Racial Equity. These worksheets might be more appropriately called “Wokesheets” because they are designed to validate the grievances of self-proclaimed “communities” seeking special status as victims of social injustice. Representation as an oppressed group in the city BfE Worksheets can be based on a number of factors including race, sex, gender identity, income, and zip code.
If you think this is an exaggeration, you can find the full explanation in City Manager Jennifer Maguire’s 12/19/22 memo to senior staff outlining budgeting process directions. BfE instructions consume a full 5 pages of the 20 page document.
Here’s a snippet from the introduction to the BfE section of Ms. Maguire’s budget guidance memo:
“The Budgeting for Equity (BfE) Worksheet is a general set of questions to guide departments in assessing the impact of budget requests on the advancement of equity and service levels to those most in need. As the coronavirus spiraled into a global pandemic, data confirmed that Black, Indigenous, Latin/o/a/x and other people of color bear an unequal burden. Centering questions of racial equity in budgeting will help our City take a meaningful step towards improving the conditions of well-being for the people most impacted by structural racism, the pandemic, and as the economy recovers.
“The BfE worksheet is an important step to integrate explicit considerations of equity into decisions in developing department budget submittals. Departments are directed to intentionally embed equity as a strategy for the development of their budget proposal package and the planned use of existing resources for next year. Keep in mind that while we lead with race and it is the predominant predictor for inequity in outcomes, other factors such as income level, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, residential zip code, and language ability can also contribute to disparities.”
This article originally appeared in Medium. Read the whole thing here.
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