March 2021 Community Conversations

Lessons Learned from Implementing Equity and Empowerment Focus into the Budget

Paul Workman, Budget Manager, City of Roanoke

“If you want to see what a government values just look at the way they prepare their budget,” said Roanoke City Manager Bob Cowell recently, to engage our new Equity and Empowerment teams. We were branching off into unchartered territory by exploring new ways to look at how we develop and examine our budget, by examining everything through an equity lens.

The City of Roanoke is no stranger to developing its budget in new and creative ways. In my 14 years in the Division of Management and Budget, not once have we developed it the same way. This year is exceptionally different from many of our prior iterations. The focus is not on exploring ‘incremental increases’ or ‘performance’ or ‘tiers’ or the dreaded and all too common ‘reduction scenarios’. Instead, this year is about something novel, as Equity and Empowerment take center stage.

We decided to implement this new process over two years, knowing our first year would be one of planning and learning. Our first step was to alter our budget system to gather the information needed to evaluate each budget request. We are fortunate to have built our own in-house budget system that allows customizations and the ability to gather unique bits of information. Working off prior designs from our Budget for Outcomes process, that posed a series of scored and ranked questions towards an inventory of government services, we modified into a series of thought provoking questions in three key areas. These are scored based on how the “requestor” feel they are currently performing on a scale between 0 and 10.

1.     Does the request advance equitable outcomes for residents and/or advance or improve upon an identified neighborhood or community asset? If so, how? If not, could it be adjusted to do so? How?

2.     Does the request burden or benefit communities of color and/or low-income individuals or neighborhoods? If so, how? Could it be adjusted to avoid or mitigate the burden and/or to realize a benefit? How?

3.     Does the request help reduce any identified disparities? If so, how? If not, could it be adjusted to do so? How?

When we rolled this out to departments, we also produced an initial Disparities and Assets Report prepared by our Planning and Economic Development Departments, highlighting known issues or opportunities throughout the community.

The variety in departmental responses has been a clear indicator that we have room for improvement.  Some responses show a lack of understanding what is meant by equity versus equality, others are not addressing identified disparities and overall there is very little focus on empowerment. Educating Directors and Managers plus knowing how to address our shortfalls is our biggest goal this first year. It is difficult to improve if you don’t first identify what needs improving.

To review the responses and scores we formed three teams. Two of the teams were formed using members of our existing Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, composed of dedicated staff from throughout the organization who are passionate about diversity. We knew these employees would be champions of our efforts. The third team was the Budget Committee itself consisting of City Administration. One advantage of getting the Budget Committee in at the ground level was so they could provide valuable guidance on the process and make adjustments for the other two teams.

We are only a couple weeks into the team meetings, but feel we have learned a few lessons already. One is to be flexible with the process and focus on the feedback. We’re not letting ourselves get too hung up on the scores. By changing a proposal’s score we are sending a message about where it stands among other proposals. A second lesson is don’t rule out the small things but don’t ignore them either. We started requiring every supplemental budget request, big or small, to complete the series of questions. You can imagine the difficulty in trying to explain how a required contractual increase in the auditing contract benefits people with socioeconomic challenges. It’s a difficult correlation and in many of these instances we simply had to skip over these and give a score of N/A. However, we’ve also been surprised how certain requests may seem inconsequential to some, yet to others there is clearly feedback necessary. For example, we were surprised when discussion of an increase in postage rates spurred an interesting conversation around the slow mail service and the difficulty in paying a bill during COVID 19. This lead to the acknowledgement that some individuals without internet access cannot pay bills online and thus could be negatively impacted by mail delivery delays, creating a cascading effect of late fees that eventually prove disastrous.

In many instances the teams don’t have the answers but are forging ahead, creating a final product of their hard work in the form of inquisitive thought provoking questions, which are then sent back to the department Director. In the end the team may have little impact on whether we fund a particular request, but the value comes from providing feedback on whether current dollars are being spent in an equitable way - perhaps making sure sidewalks are well-maintained and ADA compliant around key community assets for example. While we may highlight how everyone is within walking distance of a park, we are doing ourselves no favors if we focus major efforts on parks in the wealthiest neighborhoods but ignore a more challenged area with gangs and drug issues. Are we helping those in the community find meaningful employment? Are we helping those with mobility difficulties gain access to the premier parks so they too can enjoy their amenities?

As a final thought, one great advantage of marrying the teams’ work to the budget process is they will leave no stone unturned. It also gives budget preparers a heightened sense that this should be considered seriously, else wise they potentially risk not having something funded. Every budget request is examined with an equity lens. For now, we’ve coined this new process Budgeting For Equity and Empowerment Outcomes. In the words of Rosa Parks, “You must never be fearful about doing what you are doing when you are right.” This year, the City of Roanoke is fully embracing those words, and hoping that we will eventually realize a city that fully embraces empowerment and equity for its diverse citizenry.

To discuss this concept further or ask questions contact Paul (Paul.Workman@roanokeva.gov)

Have a topic for a future Community Conversations article to suggest?; please contact Cindy Mester (cmester@fallschurchva.gov)