Committee Report CR-6

The Civic Unity Committee held a public meeting on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 for the purpose of continuing the discussion of the City’s affirmative action policies.   The meeting began at twelve o’clock and ten minutes p.m. in the Ackermann Room.

Present at the hearing were Councillor E. Denise Simmons, Chair of the Committee, Duane Brown, Director of Affirmative Action for the City of Cambridge, Michael Gardner, Director of Personnel for the City of Cambridge, Dr. Kharis McLaughlin, Affirmative Action Director for the Cambridge Public Schools (CPS), Dr. Marilyn Monteiro, Kathy Reddick, President of the Cambridge NAACP and City Clerk D. Margaret Drury.

Mr. Brown for his work in submitting copies of the City’s first Affirmative Action Plan (1977) and the current Affirmative Action Plan and for his comparison of the plans.

Councillor Simmons asked Mr. Brown to summarize the reporting responsibilities, which can be in the current plan, on pages 8 and 9.

Dr. Monteiro asked for clarification of the goal of the Civic Unity Committee’s current review of this material.  Councillor Simmons said that the ultimate goal is to try to improve the City’s hiring practices with respect to diversity.  The current Affirmative Action Plan seems to show that the City is in compliance with federal and state equal employment opportunity requirements.  However, when she looks at the actual organization and its employees she does not see a satisfactory diversity.  She is requesting the assistance of the people she has invited to this committee, which includes people with expertise in this area, to help her look at this plan and understand whether there are changes in the plans or the City’s systemic actions that can help improve our diversity.

Councillor Simmons requested that Mr. Brown continue with an explanation of the City’s goal numbers.  Mr. Brown said that the City’s overall affirmative action goal number is 28% minority employees.  He said that the City of Cambridge uses the most recent update of the 2000 U.S. Census to arrive at its goal. In the most recent update, the pool of minorities in Cambridge went from 25% to 28%.  The category about which Councillor Simmons has expressed the most concern is the EEO 01 category of Officials and Administrators.  The goal for each category is based on the percentage of people of color filling out the long form of the census who work in that category. That number is the parity number.  When all categories are aggregated, Cambridge exceeds parity.  In the 01 category, Cambridge may not be at parity.  Four former 01-category employees who were persons of color have recently left the employ of the City for other opportunities.  He believes right now Cambridge is about 6% under parity in the 01 category.

Dr. Monteiro said that there are two components of aggregation to pay attention to.  There is the aggregation of the number of persons employed in the organization, and there is also the aggregation of the number of types of persons in the category of minority.  The second type of aggregation tends to hide the lack of black persons, so it is important to also look at the particular field by category.

Dr. McLaughlin said that the School Department does it both ways.  Mr. Brown said that the City also counts both ways, although the City is not required to report that way.  Dr. McLaughlin said that Councillor Simmons is talking about individual plans vs. the reporting plans.  In the Schools, this comes from a specific goal that comes from the School Committee.  That is different from the required affirmative action filing.  Relevant goals must be developed.  For example, if the School Department looks at the school population, the students, the population is 70% kids of color.  Mr. Brown said that Cambridge looks at both the Greater Boston population and the Cambridge population for the particular categories and takes whichever one has the higher minority percentage.  Dr. Monteiro said that if one does a national search for job candidates, there are some requirements for looking at the national population for that category as well as the local and using the one that has the higher minority population.

Councillor Simmons asked what Cambridge could do to in order to get more persons of color in 01 positions.  Mr. Brown said that when Cambridge reaches a goal percentage in a particular category, it does not mean that we stop hiring persons of color.  However, it may mean that there is a shift in focus.  For example, in the skilled craft workers 07 category, out of 145 jobs in the City, women fill only two of the positions.

Councillor Simmons asked if the plans are approved by the agencies as being in compliance because of the aggregated categories, and the better methodology is to have a separate goal for each category, how could Cambridge achieve the better goal.  Mr. Brown said that in a recent conversation he and Mr. Gardner discussed having annual meetings with each department head to review the profile of their departments, even when the department is not seeking to hire new employees at that time.

Councillor Simmons said that there have been some recent opportunities to hire department heads and persons of color were not hired.  She asked why these opportunities were missed.  Mr. Brown described the hiring process at length.

Ms. Reddick said that the basic question is who does the hiring.  That is where the goal needs to be.  With the School Department, the Superintendent has been asked to evaluate principals on their level of achievement of hiring minorities.  Dr. McLaughlin said that she agrees that evaluation is key.

Mr. Brown asked, in terms of the law, what is the goal.  Are we saying that we hold the position open until it is filled with a person of color?  Dr. McLaughlin said that she believes that there is a well-qualified person of color for every job, but that they are often not applying.

Mr. Brown said that for him, what works changes with every hire.   Sometimes he gets a good response, a good pool and sometimes he does not.  What seems to work best for him is a well-developed informal network.  That is good, but it is still not something that can be guaranteed to work.  Dr. Monteiro said it would also be helpful to gain information from other sources about what works and doesn’t work in Cambridge’s affirmative action efforts.  She noted that the current City Manager has been in office as long as the plan has existed, so he is obviously an important factor.

Councillor Simmons said that she is interested in goal development, and that she would like to see a goal of reaching parity in each individual occupational category.  Dr. Monteiro said that the inclusion of timetables is also important.

Councillor Simmons thanked those present for their participation.  The meeting was adjourned at one o’clock and thirty three minutes p.m.