Scope of Work
The Consultant who is ultimately selected will provide services including, but not necessarily limited to, the following:
DEI Program Assessment
In conjunction with designated city staff, evaluate the City’s culture using a combination of one-on-one interviews and an Inclusive Assessment to determine employee and management abilities in the areas of DEI. Evaluate opportunities and challenges using this assessment as the basis to develop program and training recommendations.
Data Analysis
Provide aid in reviewing and interpreting available demographic data for the City in relation to our workforce and communities we serve. Review data on services provided by the City to understand whether the City appropriately serves and regulates our citizens, businesses, and visitors.
Recommend additional data that could be developed to inform City practices moving forward.
Policy Review
Review existing City-wide and Departmental-specific policies and procedures with a DEI lens and make recommendations for updates or creation of new policies and procedures. Review community and elected official involvement and participation in City activities and make recommendations to ensure City activities align with community goals. Review City housing, employment data, and City land use policies to recommend policy options to create a more diverse, vibrant community.
Recommendations
Development of recommendation(s) for a comprehensive DEI program for the City, which we expect to include components of in-person and online training for all staff, committees, and boards. The City also seeks train-the trainer services for select staff.
Recommendations should address how to build stakeholder and community engagement processes into our work and ensure that each of our steps and actions include an element of capacity building. Other components to include:
• Conduct outreach to and communication with key community partners on issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Communicate findings, both positive and negative, and need for adjustments to approach.
• Recommend any external citizen/community-oriented DEI activities needed to complement and enhance the City’s work.
• The Consultant would provide the first sessions of training for the committee with a goal of training internal employees to conduct future sessions.
Program Structure
We expect the proposed program to address, at a minimum, the following elements:
• Build organizational commitment and infrastructure across functions of the City of Jackson to demonstrably advance DEI-based transformation.
• Conduct pre-assessment readiness activities with Directors/Managers/Supervisors to increase their understanding of inclusive goals and strategies.
• Establish and/confirm a baseline to determine: 1) Gaps in workforce engagement involving diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion; and 2) How identified gaps might be overcome.
• Following review of the City’s organizational assessment, determine what areas need culturally competent trainings and employee engagement, i.e., understanding the LGBTQIA Community (to include transgender, gender fluidity, and non-binary), and understanding the construct of race and racism.
• Guide and direct the City's efforts to attract and retain an engaged and diverse workforce with the ability to work collaboratively across differences to achieve organizational objectives (including the development and implementation of cultural competence on-boarding and training programs).
• Provide foundational training to embed DEI principles and a shared framework in all levels of City governance, operations, and future planning processes.
• Provide technical assistance to the Mayor, Council and Directors to establish DEI performance indicators, strategies, measures, or programs that address identified gaps and align with the City's overall strategy.
• Assist the City in implementing recommended "best practices" related to workforce DEI engagement (e.g., employee resource groups, mentoring, coaching, and affinity groups).
• Assist the City in implementing an employee-led racial equity and inclusion committee. Each department would be guided by a recommended series of cultural competencies resulting in their recommendation of a departmental representative who would best provide continued strategies for heightening awareness of bias and how to address it.
• Develop and implement an Equity Impact Toolkit (lens) and related performance measurements integrating racial equity into budgeting and organizational decision-making; and advancing workforce and workplace equity.
• Review external policies (e.g., city-wide housing, transportation and economic issues, community diversity, inclusion, and access to City services.)
• Community engagement and development of external communication strategies to inform diverse populations of the City’s activities and invite them to participate.
• Work with the City to identify the impacts of Covid-19 and how historical and contemporary policies manifest in disparate outcomes within our community. Assist in identifying how to incorporate a racial equity tool (lens) to share our decision-making power to increase equity and identify how decisions will be experienced by specific communities and ensure these decisions work for the people most impacted.
• Assist the City in learning how to establish and implement a comprehensive DEI program infrastructure that creates and sustains an inclusive and equitable workplace climate that fosters anti-racism.
Integration
Recommendations and/or suggestions on ways to integrate and expand the program into one that is outward facing and addressing the DEI needs of our patrons, community partners and the diverse populations we serve.
Aim to build stakeholder and community engagement processes into the work and ensure that each of our steps and actions include an element of capacity building.
Evaluation
Recommendations and implementation of methods to evaluate program success, including post- training cultural survey and final report on project. Recommendations on steps needed to ensure the program is a sustainable, integral part of City’s culture.
Internal Equity Evaluation
The internal racial equity audit would include a review of existing documents regarding program information and evaluation, member surveys, human resource policies and procedures, marketing materials, the City website, and other pertinent documents to develop a more comprehensive picture of the organizational climate in relation to its goal of equity. Included in the audit will be a review of policies and activities of other cities and municipalities.
Once material is collected and analyzed, the consultants will prepare a detailed summary report, including but not limited to an analysis outlining key themes, recommendations for incorporating action steps into administrative and programmatic areas, and a compilation of racial equity programs of similar organizations. This work may be completed before or during the DEI program development, as recommended by the consultant. Audit elements are expected to include, at a minimum:
a) Assessments of programs, policies, structures, practices, and culture resulting in qualitative and quantitative data regarding the current work and workplace of the City, as well as stakeholder perspectives and expectations for future organizational culture change in relation to racial equity programming and practice.
b) A comprehensive written report of the audit detailing its process, key themes, analysis of the gaps and disconnects between the current and future/desired state of the organization, and opportunities to build upon. The report should include recommendations for embedding inclusive policies and practices into the organization’s culture and into all function areas (as noted earlier) of the City, including achievable short-term action steps and sustainable, long- term goals.
c) A field scan of complementary efforts done by other cities and municipalities.
Deliverables
• Overall project plan with timelines and associated costs
• Cultural competence and racial equity training plan and delivery for managers, supervisors, and staff.
• An internal racial equity assessment that is conducted, analyzed, and interpreted.
• Analysis of the potential impacts from COVID on disadvantaged and marginalized communities.
• Development and implementation of an employee-led racial equity and inclusion committee.
• Communications and messaging plan.
• Development and implementation of DEI dashboard/performance measures.
• Establishment of a community/staff Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee.
• Development and implementation of a Racial Equity Impact Tool and application training.
• Conduct community focus groups and development of a community engagement strategy.
• Assist the City in the development of a Strategic Plan including City wide metrics to track the impact and effectiveness of DEI strategies on the City's workforce culture and climate.
• Assist the organization in identifying staff, fiscal, technological, and operational resources needed to implement a Strategic Plan.
• Assist the City in the implementation of a dashboard/scorecard to report progress.
• Assist with implementing and measuring the impact of DEI strategies.
• Assist the City in implementing and measuring the impact of sustainability measures.
• Assist the City in continuing and measuring the impact of staff ongoing education.
• Assist the City in remediating identified barriers to workforce engagement and in developing remedial approaches to address identified barriers.
The Selected Proposer(s) shall also be required to meet the following goals:
• Assess and monitor JPD’s internal operations, policies, procedures, and practices to detect the presence of implicit bias and systemic racial bias.
• Collect and analyze data related to traffic stops, use of force, and other police officer/civilian interactions and determine the impact on Black and Brown members in the community.
• Assess compliance with existing police reform policies initiated by JPD and enacted by the Citizens Police Oversight Commission (e.g., body cameras, Right to Know Identification legislation, and Citizen Police Review Board).
• Provide recommendations for reforms that eliminate racial and implicit biases in policing deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices. Such recommendations must:
1. Promote community engagement transparency, professionalism, accountability, community inclusion, fairness, effectiveness, and public trust; and
2. Be guided by evidence-based best practices and community expectations.
The Selected Proposer(s) shall conduct the following activities:
A. Review documents, including, but not limited to:
1. JPD’s general orders and field guidelines related to the priority areas described in Paragraph 4.3;
2. Strategic Planning Reports; and
3. Police Reform legislation passed by the City Council (e.g. body cameras, Right to Know Identification legislation, and Citizen Police Review Board).
A. Conduct interviews of the following personnel:
1. City of Jackson Mayor;
2. City of Jackson Police Chief;
3. City of Jackson Council Members (President, Public Safety Chair and Council Members who represent Wards predominantly populated by Black community members);
4. Jackson Citizens Police Oversight Committee Chair (TBD),
5. NAACP President;
6. Members of the Racial Equity Commission and Human Relations Commission; and
7. Six (6) Additional community leaders/stakeholders selected by Racial Equity Commission
A. Conduct data collection and analysis:
1. Collect and analyze data related to the priority areas listed in Paragraph 4.3;
2. Issue a preliminary written report with findings due no later than October 30, 2022;
3. Issue a final written report with recommendations due no later than December 1, 2022;
4. Present findings and recommendations to the City of Jackson Mayor and City Council, with written materials to follow.
The Selected Proposer(s) shall focus on the following priority areas when achieving the goals listed in Paragraph 4.1 and conducting the activities listed in Paragraph 4.2:
A. Deployments for quality of life complaints, code violations, and instances of violence;
B. Traffic stops;
C. The complaint process, internal and external;
D. Use of force, deadly and non-deadly
