Red Strokes Passions and games Thundering moments Of tenderness Rage for Red Strokes Thank you. I'm going to go to the next stage. All right, if we can go ahead and, thank you, Chris. If we could go ahead and get started. I think everybody is good, and I think we have a quorum, and we've established a quorum. welcome back to the council chambers and welcome to the general government social services committee just thrilled to be here we will call the meeting to order and our first item on our agenda is the approval of the april 13 2021 committee summary i would entertain a motion for approval Second. All right. Second. Council Member Plowman made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Reynolds. Is there any discussion on that motion? There being none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Change the language up. Any opposed? Thank you so much. All right. And then the next item is a preliminary presentation given to us by Director Richard Young of Civic Lex. Mr. Young is going to briefly share with us about the findings, preliminary findings from the public comment survey. And I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you, Mr. Young, so that you can give us your brief presentation. Great. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. It's wild. It's so nice to be back in here and see you all in council chambers. I feel like I'm talking so loud into this microphone. So thank you all so much for having me. I'm really excited to present an update of what are the data that we've received so far as part of our engagement process around public comment. So I'm going to just jump right in. So just as an overview, we are working pro Bono with you all to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the current public comment system and generate suggestions for procedures that could make public engagement more effective and efficient. Our target is to focus on with now, now, after COVID restrictions have been lifted and people can come back into council chambers. So I'm really excited to be in that time. So just to review, when we made this presentation to you all a few months ago about the overview of our process. The issue that we see and that we hear from residents every day is that the in-person feedback mechanism during public meetings and how people engage with you all is not working very well for residents. And I'm sure that's not a surprise to any of you all. You know, it is inopportune timing. It's hard to get down here at the right times. You have to be here at 1 right now or 3 or sometimes 6. And the process can be very strange because you give your public comment and no one can really respond to you or react. So it feels a little bit vacuous. We have also heard from folks that the timing in the legislative process, right, builds a sense of mistrust and disempowerment because so many people are pushed to coming to the 6 p.m. council meetings when often decisions have already been made. And so people come and show up and give comment and don't see a reaction to that. And so they feel the sense of disempowerment. And so that's one of the things we're trying to address with this process. But the other side is that it's also not very great for you all, right? Obviously, if it's not great for constituents, it's not going to be very great for their representatives. And it also derails work after a long and lengthy process of going through so many different meetings inside city government. To have something derailed at the last minute can be very demoralizing for folks. And so these are things that we've heard from folks on both the resident side and the government side over the past couple years and why we were wanting to explore this project. So for our work, we were really focusing on sort of two out of the four tiers that we see of civic engagement. So the core tier, very engaged. There are some of us that are very engaged and show up at a lot of meetings or watch a lot of meetings and are in the room right now. But then there's sort of these two outer tiers of somewhat engaged and likely to engage or really who we're interested in hearing from. I do also want to say that there's this sort of fourth tier that is people that are not likely to really engage with LFUCG at any point and that is a bigger issue than we can solve in this process so we're really wanting to focus on on the sort of edge cases right people that either do engage right now every now and then or maybe likely to engage so again this has been a process that we've been working on since fall of 2020 when we first sort of brought it up with you all and to date we have created a survey protocol that has been released it's out in the public right now with doctors Corey Curl and Yulia Shibulkina from the Martin School at UK and then Dr. Alan Bartley at Transy and we've been working with their students to develop the survey and implement this process and it's been really fantastic we have released a survey on April 22nd we are currently in the middle doctors Curl and Shibulkina are currently in the middle of this sort of field scan of what different public input methodologies exist in different communities across the country. And our survey closes actually on Friday, this Friday, June 18. We've reached people through a variety of different methods. We've had a number of direct emails, direct contacts to people that are working in community that we can easily reach more people through them. Obviously, all of our media channels, we've put up hundreds of posters in a lot of different locations across Lexington. We've been really focusing on bus stops, laundromats, markets, and that sort of thing. We've done grocery store and parking lot flyering, so just like being those annoying people, sticking things on people's windshields. And we've also set up tables in markets. We've spent a couple hundred dollars on social media advertisements. We got donated incentives from Kroger, Ramsey's, Wilson's, and Starbucks for anyone that takes our survey. You get entered in the chance to win a $50 gift card to any of these places. And then we've also, you know, hopefully sent it out through many of your all's newsletters and other different forms of communication that you all have, as well as community media outlets. We've partnered with Radio X and Smiley Pete and a number of other folks to get the word out through their publications. To date, we, well, this is a little bit out of date. almost at a thousand now but we have received at the time of me making this presentation received 873 responses our pie chart right there is on this scale of very engaged to not likely to engage and we were focusing really on that somewhat engaged and not engaged but would engage I'm gonna say word the word engage a lot sorry and that is the group that we've hit so that that feels really good to me we also have a pretty wide distribution across zip code these are different all of the all of the zip codes that have participated in this survey to date there we go we we've noticed in in the data that it's a pretty well educated group of folks so we have right just about 70% having a a bachelor's degree or higher, which is significantly higher than Lexington as a whole, which is about 43% have a bachelor's degree or higher. It's also incredibly female. And this is a, I was very surprised by this and started digging into other data, and then it turns out I should not have been surprised at all because women, folks that identify as women, are significantly more civically engaged than men by an enormous margin in all industrialized countries. So that is a manifestation of that. It's also pretty white. And this matches actually pretty closely the labor force presentation that's coming up, but it does not necessarily match the voting demographics of Lexington, which is really what we are looking at, more so than the entire demographics. So that was something to us that was a little bit concerning in the data about who feels that they do want to respond to a survey about participating with city government. It's also pretty young compared to folks that I commonly see engaging with city government, which was good news for us. All right. So this is what we found so far. Of folks that are already engaged, the main motivator is basically to get involved in issues that impact folks' communities or issues that they think are important. only half of residents that responded indicated they actually get involved the city government because of issues that are impacting them personally which is a very fascinating and interesting detail so it's a lot more about what is impacting people's neighborhoods and less about what is impacting them personally the main way the residents get involved in city government is to email you all probably it's not a surprise that's about 80% of respondents ever that have engaged with city government at some point have emailed you all that is followed very distantly by emailing city staff signing petitions and engaging in protests but only 21% of residents that have ever engaged with LFUCG have ever given public comment which is a very interesting finding for me in this process already again all those of those already engaged 44% think that those that have of those that have engaged think that their options for doing so are not adequate and 75% of them want to be more engaged with city government this was this is a little note while 44% obviously think that their options are inadequate 56% said that they were adequate which is very good news but almost every person at some point in the survey protocol said that there was there were needs there was a need a strong need for additional or more diverse options for engaging with city government so then looking at folks that have never engaged with city government we we found that 45% of those respondents that have never engaged with city government don't even know what they can engage with and so that to me is a pretty significant education gap in terms of what residents feel like they have the ability to shape what's happening in city government at all 41% are confused about how to participate and 30% think that their input isn't going to matter many residents expressed that the time and location options for meetings made it impossible that for them to ever participate and so that they would not ever participate because of that 73% this is of all respondents 73% said that they can trust the city to make decisions in a fair way some of the time and 25% a resident said that they don't trust the city often or at all 20 residents this is a really funny little detail 20 residents so that they didn't trust LFUCG to make decisions in a fair but said that those decisions were what was best for Lexington and then 24 residents this is a percentage they're just individuals so that they trusted LFUCG to make decisions in a fair way but that those decisions weren't what's best for Lexington so there's a little bit of conflicting data in there and really interesting I would love to have a conversation with some of these folks also of all respondents only 18% so that they understood how to engage with LFUCG well 14% again said that they didn't know how to engage at all and this is sort of pie chart to the right don't understand all the way to understand well and so there's a pretty significant group of people that kind of understand what's going on but don't really feel that they can say that authoritatively 54% of residents expressed that city meeting times were either somewhat inconvenient or very inconvenient that is a you know obviously a half of the residents that responded said that they don't feel like that they this is a a convenient thing for them, that is something to note. And survey residents are evenly split between whether or not LFUCG takes their input seriously and is directly down the middle. 50% said that they do, 50% said that they don't. And there are some gradations in there. But the thing that I thought was really encouraging about this is that more people, that there was a pretty high percentage of people that said that they think that LFUCG takes their input somewhat seriously, which was good, that was the highest of all three of the buckets. So we also asked folks what they wanted to see in terms of new forms of input. And of the options that we presented, we presented nine options total. The most popular new method for input was a way to provide comments outside of city meetings and have them be entered into the public record. That was by far the most popular, followed closely by a better way to track issues as they are moving through city hall. And there are a number of communities that use really great products for that, you know, in addition to some of the products that we already offer here in Lexington. And some residents expressed that language use, jargon, legalese makes it much more difficult to engage, which I feel like is a common thing that you all have heard. But when we asked residents to choose just one of those nine options, we were like, okay, if you could only have one of these, which one would it be? It was basically almost evenly split between these five. More options for virtual public input. so not having to come down to City Hall to make public comment, providing public input or comment outside of city meetings, tracking issues through legislative process, more ways to communicate directly with government officials, and a dedicated full-time person in city government to assist residents with providing input. Those are the five that rose to the top for folks. We also had some other, you know, the typical colorful responses you get from folks in surveys. But, you know, I think we had everything from people want to have a direct say over where where their taxes are going, which would obviously be no surprise to any of you all. People were looking for something a little more creative. People were very frustrated about receiving form letter responses back to their input. That is something that came up a lot and had a lot of profane language that didn't make it into this presentation. Also neighborhoods, obviously it's a huge focus for a lot of folks. People want to have a little bit more say over what happens in their communities. The one that tracked a lot through a lot of comments was, it seems like this quote, sometimes it seems like the city gathers public input just to say that they have done so, like the decisions have been reached even before the collection of input. And I think that that goes to this distrust and mistrust that is built in because of the process and when people can provide input in a substantial way. And then we got a number of these two that said that their council people are awesome. So that was really positive. I can't tell you all who that is. So moving forward, we are still gathering responses. We'll be gathering responses through the end of the week. And we'll want to present those to you all in a report. We're also want to survey the other side of it, you all and city staff. This process is taking a little longer than we thought, but that's always the case. So we hope to be coordinating with you all and with the administration on that. And then we want to have, the sort of tail end of this process is really working with Chief Information Officer Balasenti to really understand and rank and rate potential services that could actually address some of these issues. So with that, I said I would get it under 15 minutes, Hillary, and I think I did. You have one minute to spare, so thank you very much. I appreciate that. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Chair. I had to figure out how to turn this microphone. Thank you, Richard. You all do such a great job. your Monday report that comes out, it's like one of the first things I do in the morning is read that. I wanted to check and see how many subscribers do you have to Civic Lex? In terms of our newsletter or just general, a couple thousand. How many? Probably like 2,000 to 3,000 depending on the week. Okay. And I wanted to see when you said you had 873 responses, do you have any way to attach that to that number? I mean. And of those, how many are people that are already subscribed to Civic Lux? We really tried hard to reach outside of our normal audience. And so I would say we don't have a way to track that. We did ask people to provide their email address if they wanted to be connected with what we do. And then also if they wanted to win $50 to Ramsey's. And that one, I think, is why people gave their email addresses. But yeah, I would say that of, you know, it's probably less than half of the email addresses were contacts that existed in our system already. Because I think the learning curve since you've come into existence has really, really gone up. I mean, I feel like there is more engagement as a result of Civic Lex. I mean, like I said, I read it every Monday and there's things on there that I go, oh, I didn't even realize that was going to happen this week. And also when you were talking about they wanted new times and new locations, was there any ask or suggestions where they thought might be? You know, we provided some open response items, but I think one of the things that we're really interested in doing is following up with folks that did provide their contact information and getting a little bit more detail from them. You know, there have been a number of communities that have sort of moved towards creating essentially like mobile council meetings, right? taking committee meetings and moving them around in the community, having them in parks, having them in other places that people can attend. But, you know, it's unclear to me, like, actually how much people will show up. Like, I think the issue is less about the, a lot of people say the time and location, but I think a lot of it is the time more so than the location. And that is also mirrored in our data. But I think a lot of it is just understanding the process, right? Like, people just don't understand. Yeah. A lot of people think that, which would be no surprise to you all, but A lot of people think that all of the decisions, the whole process happens in council meetings and don't know that there's more that happens. And I think it's really good information for all of us to know. And I especially liked Council Member Brown's quote about himself here on the end. My council member is awesome. Seems like he cares about those he serves. I can't tell you what district it came from. Very good, Jake. Council Member Brown. That's all, Richard. Thanks for everything you all do. You make a big difference. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. Absolutely. Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Richard, and all the staff at Civic Lex. I know what a big undertaking it is to collect data like this and to try to bump up your numbers. It's good to hear that you're getting close to 1,000 and I look forward to seeing the later report to show how that overlaps with our population demographics and all of those kinds of things. I have just a couple questions for you. First, I know in the past, in some of your data collection processes, you have actually made the data set available to the public. Do you have a plan to de-identify the data and make that available at all? I think that's a conversation we would love to have with the city. I mean, you know, we are doing this is all data that CivicClex has gathered, but I think we want to do that if you all are comfortable with that. We love the ability for other folks to tap into the data that we've gathered and do additional research on it. I think that's a good idea just for transparency sake because if we're going to make policy recommendations then we should show where the data were collected from. And then I saw some kind of places where there might be like some relationships between the variables that you have been looking at. Do you have an analysis plan to look at some of those things like, for example, you know, 50% of people said they're emailing city staff and 49% signing petitions and 48% engaging in protests. So, like, is that the same 50% of your sample, or are some people doing some of those things? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's a great question. So we're planning on doing a deeper statistical analysis once we have the full data set. Yeah, so we're waiting until Friday. So I haven't dug into it to that level of detail yet, but I think that I would be surprised if there's not a correlation there. Yeah. Okay, final question. You presented the respondents with nine different options for ways to give public comment. Can you talk a little bit about where those nine came from, how those were chosen? Yeah, so those nine came from, you know, everything, generally what we've heard from the focus groups that we had at the beginning of this process. And that's something I didn't include in this presentation. But we had four focus groups with, you know, probably a couple dozen residents. A number of you all sent in suggestions for those. And those were ideas and options that we heard from them. I just wanted to sort of, you know, gauge what people's interest in those were. But they're generally sort of mixed with what we understand as best practices from other communities. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Absolutely. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Richard, for your presentation and all your work on this initiative. I think I was surprised by a few of the responses, but a lot of the responses, I kind of anticipated those answers. I think we as council members have expressed frustration about the time and the feedback that we get public input. And I think it's been expressed from the public. It didn't seem like it was any question, I guess, asking them about when would they like an opportunity to have input into some of the things that get brought forward. Do you have a thought or did you ask that question or do you have a thought on timing? Timing in the legislative process? Yeah. Yeah. So we didn't have a specific question about where in the legislative process people would want to weigh in, but I think generally what we've seen from reading the sort of other responses that people submitted and just looking at the data generally, I think the frustration is that people is really that they feel like it's coming way too late. People want to have input, I think, earlier in it when issues are more malleable and they feel like their input is actually going to impact something. I think one of the biggest things that we've heard, even outside of this process, is that yeah, most of the residents that we engage with and interact with on a consistent basis think that when they give input, it is essentially useless. And it feels like a sort of Sisyphean act, right, of coming and giving public comment, knowing that it's not going to make a difference. And whether or not that is an accurate description of the impact of public comment, I think that is a disempowering feature of democracy. And so if we're going to look at how we can get more residents engaged and build a more efficient legislative process, I would imagine that that would have to come at a point in which people feel like their opinion can be understood and heard. Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing what kind of response you get once you do the staff survey because i think they may provide some input and some information about what's the most appropriate time and effective time to have public input but you know through through all this work that's one of the things that concerns me the most is the fact that people are perceived that decisions are already made before we have public comment even though i can share several examples of where that's not has not been the case but But I guess we can just work to try to address that. So I'd be interested in seeing how some of that information helps us make decisions on how to improve this process moving forward. So thank you for your work. Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Richard, for this work so far. My question really has to do with the way in which you've framed the information. So help me understand, is it mostly about public comment and the opportunity for that, or is it about public engagement in the way in which people have, I mean, when I think of public comment, I think of mainly people coming to the podium, or they can send us emails or whatever. But in my mind, there's a difference between that and the way in which people can be more broadly engaged. So have you thought about that and is there a way that that might be reflected in the data you've collected? Yeah, so that's a really great question, the distinction between public comment and public engagement. And we actually kind of, I feel like, have framed it around a third one, which is public input, right? Which to me feels a lot more concrete than engagement, but not as concrete as comment. because I agree, giving public comment really does feel like what I'm doing right now, except if I weren't giving a presentation. So when we talked about this with residents and in our communications and in our marketing materials for the survey, we've really talked about it in terms of public input, and that is reflected throughout the survey process as well. Okay, so the elements in here that really get into the broader question are not included in the data or I guess I'm still not clear about what you're really looking at and what problem you're trying to fix. Yes, the problem that I think we're trying to fix is a way, basically how residents provide input into the legislative process for LFECG. Which is different than public comment and different than public engagement, right? It's the input process. Okay, and so maybe just one follow-up comment. You've already touched upon the fact that some people think that the decisions have already been made. And in my mind, there is a point at which public input changes into public engagement, which is more about a back and forth where people feel like there's really some consideration of the issues. and kind of an editorial comment. I agree, public comment as we now take it doesn't have any of that element, and it's very hard for people to understand how what they've just said when they speak to us at the podium for three minutes, kind of where it goes. So I don't know. I don't know where that goes, but just random thoughts for you to consider. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Richard, for this presentation and all of your all's hard work at Civic Lex on this. I, you know, as over the years, it seems like oftentimes the people that come to do public comment here in our meetings are the same people. and that we're not engaging a wider group of constituents. And so I would really like to work on doing that, and so I appreciate this. Anne, I'm interested in what you said about finding a way that people could know about the legislative process a little better so that they could get engaged. I've heard that as a complaint a lot from constituents, that they don't know how to use the website and find out what's happening when. I really appreciate Civic Lux making that clear every week about what's going on. And I just wonder, you know, as a local government, how we could be a little more transparent so that people can say, oh, that issue, you know, really concerns me. I'm going to talk to my council member about it before we get to a first reading or a second vote on it. So I guess that's going to be part of this, is looking at ways that, like you said, people can be involved. Yeah, you know, part of this is going to be a field scan of basically different methodologies from other communities and how they gather resident input. You know, some of those are like actual processes, like how people give public comment and what happens when people give public comment at the podium. And then some, you know, range all the way over to, you know, digital solutions or even other sort of more creative strategies. You know, I think when, I think the thing that we've noticed in, and I think one of the things that we hear a lot from folks that subscribe to the newsletter that we put out every week, is that it's, people feel like they have to go hunting, right, and that things aren't sent to them. And I think that that starts to begin that framing where people, right, if people have to go and hunt for it, then they feel like they have to come and give comment, and it's a Sisyphean feeling, I feel like. And so, because it feels like something's being hidden. It's not. It's just not the way that the system is currently designed to send information directly to residents. And I think a lot about the public engagement toolkit that the Division of Planning has been working on. I was on the planning committee for that, and the very proactive strategies that that was looking at. or the building i software that planning also used to use that would be able that where residents could subscribe to issues that were happening near them and get proactive notifications about that i think you know there are a lot you know those but for broader issues that attempts like that but for broader issues i think could be really really impactful um in the long term right and again designing better public input mechanisms and and and healthier public engagement to vice Mayor Kay's point is going to is going to give people more trust right and is going to make the interactions that they have at the podium and for public comment much more productive yeah I agree and then maybe not as contentious by the time they do have public comment ideally ideally ideally okay great thank you I really appreciate it councilmember Maloney thank you for your presentation I don't mean to say this but what you just said is I've been hearing for the last 30 years. People wanting to move. We've had council members, mayors come in and say we're putting in the neighborhoods and all that and it didn't work because of employees over time and all that. But what I have noticed, some of the people who do come up here and make comments, it's like some people I know, in some cases me, I call for information and I get a robot call and I get frustrated I want to talk to someone and I keep going through that call over and over and a lot of times count somebody to come here and complain about something and the mayor would direct them to that department here and and I'm sorry they have to go through all that but they like me get frustrated I want to have somebody talk to me immediately I'm old-fashioned and that's it some and a lot of these people are old-fashioned that still have that. And I think to me, how we fix that problem, I don't think you can fix it. I mean, they're going to have those people that are going to get frustrated and they're going to come down here no matter what. But in the long run, we do take care of most of them. There will be people that come down here and voice their opinion why we voted for something or why we didn't vote for something. But most of the time, if there is someone with another reason, we have plenty of help out here and the mayor would direct them to help them. And I don't know how we can make it better to keep them from coming down here. I think our intent is to try to get them to come down here in some cases, but not like that. If we can find another way to do it, we can do it. Call your council office or, well, they go through all this frustration. They'll tell you that. But I do commend. And I think overall, while you say the age, a lot of the women, young, as I sit here, we have a lot of good programs for elderly over the years. We've had the senior intern where they learn everything about government. We've got the police academy where we learn about the police and all that. So some of those people already know a lot about government that don't come. So I want to put it out there. There are some real good intelligent people already out there that understand that. But I think there are some that have fallen through the cracks, and I appreciate you coming here. How we fix that, I don't know. But I've been sitting here for 30 years. Everybody thinks they've got a way to do it. But there's always some other reason why we can't. But I do appreciate what you said. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member McCurn. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for your recognition. Richard, thank you for your presentation and for all the work you and Civic Lex do. I greatly appreciate the transparency you guys bring to city government. and not just that, but the work you guys do in our community. So thank you. I just had a few brief questions for you here. Was there in your surveys or people that you've communicated with and comments, was there like a time frame that typically worked best for people to come here for public comment? Yeah, I mean, I think after the work day, right? Which is like, it's a fundamental tension, right? after 5 p.m. is going to be easier for people because most folks you know that have jobs can't you know a regular nine-to-five job can't make it down here for the times in which policy is still fluid and still being developed right in this meeting for example and but the the tension of that is that the city also is nine to five and y'all also need to have like personal human lives outside of being on council. I don't know what that is. So, you know, I think that there's, I don't know how you, I think to council member Maloney's point, I don't, I don't know how you resolve that tension. But I think it's good to know that it's there. In all the comments also, did you have any input based on people feeling like that zoom was more efficient or that in person was more efficient? Everyone preferred zoom. Okay. Interesting. I think the ability, maybe not you all being on zoom but the ability to zoom into a council meeting right because if you think about if you're coming down here you have three minutes for public comment it takes 45 minutes potentially depending on traffic and where you're driving from round trip to get here you know that's and then park and then all of the different things that you have to do to get in here um you know i mean that's a it's an hour to an hour and a half of someone's time to give three minutes for something that they're not going to actually get a verbal response to sure no that That makes sense. One other question for you about, you guys, it was asked earlier on about your newsletter that goes out. And I do appreciate the words that you guys put in there and the links that you share. In our newsletter that goes out weekly, we also put the same thing in our newsletter. And so I appreciate that. Would you all, and I'm trying to see this being unbiased, but would you all be willing to share links to our newsletters to keep an extra communication? Absolutely, 100%. I appreciate that a lot. A thousand percent, send them to us. Anything for more transparency to our community and our constituents is absolutely necessary. So I do appreciate that and all the work that you guys do. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Sure, Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Richard, for putting this study together. I think it is of utmost importance. I feel like this is one of the main reasons that I wanted to get into government is to bring the government to the people. And I feel like the process of coming down here is intimidating. the majority of people hate public speaking. So standing behind a podium and putting a microphone in front of their face is overwhelming. So I'm interested to see how the results pan out. And I do kind of agree with the concept of allowing Zoom because I think it'd be really easy for somebody to take a 15-minute break from work, Zoom in on their phone, and then go about their day. I think that could be a viable option for us. So my question for you is, of the residents that expressed that the time was impossible for them, was there any indication that they were even aware of what times our meetings were held? That's a very good question. When we close the survey and get the final data, I'm really, really interested to look at the difference between folks that have reported engaging with city government and folks that haven't reported engaging with city government to see how that question differs, both meeting times and meeting locations. I mean, I do think that there's a pretty healthy majority of people out there that do not know that there is a city council or when it meets or where it meets. Right. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember McGree. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Richard, for this presentation, and thank you to everybody at Civic Lex who has been involved in all of our citywide parks. partners and people at LFUCG who have also contributed thus far. I wanted to return to, I guess, a question of terminology and practice that Vice Mayor Kaye brought up. When I'm looking at the preliminary overview of new methods of input, I'm seeing kind of a, I'm not exactly sure if this is right, but a conflation of the terms input and comment. I am so grateful to have the transparency and legibility that is provided by organizations like yours, like Civic Lex. And I really want to bring more true engagement, as Vice Mayor Kay mentioned, into our exchanges with our residents, with our constituency. And so when I'm looking at this, this very first bullet where it says more options for virtual public input, do you think that people mean simply during the comment process? Do you think that, and I'm also looking at providing public input slash comments outside of city meetings. What are your thoughts about that in practice and in actuality in terms of public comment or other types of input? Yeah, that's a very good question. So from what we've been able to gather based on responses from residents, the public input is a more broad concept, right? And public input and comment is a lot more specific about actually signing up to give public comment, which is why those are two different questions, or two different responses. And I'll go back and look at the survey mechanism itself and see if that distinction was actually there. I mean, it's a PowerPoint presentation. But I'll make sure that those things are, you know, see and make sure that if there is a distinction that it's, you know, reflected in the presentation. Thank you, Chair. That's it. Thank you, Richard. Sure. Awesome. presentation and I look forward to having more discussions in light of the other two presentations that we have today I'll save my comments for when you bring your final back and then I'll have some more conversations on the side so you can also email me oh yes definitely yes now I actually have some good ideas so just as a result of this conversation thank you so much for your time today thank you all so much I appreciate it yes thank you now colleagues As we'll get to the next item on our agenda, which is the diversifying hiring and promotional opportunities within LFUCG. I believe Ms. Hamilton wants to start this presentation and turn it over to Mr. Maxwell, and we welcome you today. Thank you. Thank you. So, Mike's working. Okay. I'd like to start by thanking the Civil Service Commission for their work on this topic. They met with us and discussed the review of salary levels in certain parts of government. They expressed a very strong concern that the salary levels were not indicative of diversity and inclusion. And they insisted that we take a really hard look at this and make strides in moving the needle. They even suggested a mentorship program, which we will highlight today. We really do appreciate our civil service commission for their dedication to all inclusiveness and diverse workspace. There are very few civil service commissions that would have taken the time to really delve into an issue like this. And I felt very strongly that we needed to show that appreciation. My second point today is we don't need to get too confident when John presents the data at the first part of the presentation. That shows that our workforce diversity exceeds that of our local workplace and would lead you to believe we don't have a problem. The key point as he goes on with his data and presentation is on page 39 and it centers on wage distribution. Our ethnic racial diversity is within those lower pay grades. That is what we'll focus on today because that's where we must improve. So with that, I'd like Mr. Maxwell to come up please. Thank you, Ms. Hamilton. Welcome Mr. Maxwell. Thank you. CAO Hamilton kind of gave a little spoiler alert there to my presentation. But good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon. Welcome back to the chambers. It's good to see you all back. A lot better than seeing you on that TV screen back there every week. Today I want to talk specifically about diversity as it relates to race and ethnicity as related to our classified civil service group. So that's basically what this is going to focus on. That means it does not include unclassified civil service temporary, seasonal, or part time nor does it include sworn employees in the divisions of fire police or community corrections so i'd like to get right into the agenda there we are and uh basically the agenda can there's several bullet points there but it can really be broken down into two components the first component is as cao hamilton mentioned you're going to see first a bunch of statistics i'm not going to dwell on those i'm going to just give those as a matter of fact you can they're self-explanatory you can see those um and and if you have any questions i'll certainly be willing to to answer those but the second part of it is and what i really want to focus on is our recruitment retention and development strategy now and for the future. I think it's really important now that we take some time and look at making improvements in these areas because by doing that we'll be able to make improvements in our minority and people of color representations as well and I'll kind of get into that in a little more detail. So the overview of our analysis is the the data illustrates that overall diversity among our classified civil service employees workforce exceeds our community available labor market comparative data our ethnicity and racial representation in job families as a second kind of analysis also exceeds available labor market goals these are two very good data points and they are that they're just data points and and ones that we're we're proud of that we have. The one that we're outlining more today is the one having to do with data as it relates to our ethnic and racial diversity in and within our pay grades. So what you'll see is for the most part a heavy percentage of our minority and people of color are in the lower two lower paid quartiles as opposed to within the higher paid quartiles. So this last bullet point I think really will tell you what this presentation is all about. Our analysis indicates the focus needs to be on attracting and retaining talent and building a larger applicant base and a pipeline for employee growth by enhancing opportunities for advancement. And that's the sum total of what we're trying to do with our initiatives and what I'm going to describe to you today. So this is the first. Mr. Maxwell. Yes. Would you lean into the microphone a little bit more? Oh, I'm sorry. Some of my colleagues are having trouble hearing, and I apologize for having to interrupt you. I'm so sorry. Okay, can you hear me now? You can't hear me. Go ahead, Dr. Okay, is that better? Okay, I'm sorry. The first slide that we have here is a composition of a workforce. And it compares the labor market in the Lexington, Fayette, urban county area. Also, the Census Bureau calls it the SMSA, our standard metropolitan statistical area. And that is compared vis-a-vis what's in our classified civil service employees, the makeup of that. So if you look down there, you'll see that in terms of our protected groups, We are underrepresented in our Hispanic or Latino group by far right column 3.73 by 3.75%. That is an area that we do need to work on and we need to target and try to further penetrate the Hispanic community to get more applicants. The black or African American, we're well represented there overall. And the other areas that are listed are really, in terms of numbers, statistically insignificant to draw conclusions. So generally, it's those first three that we look at hard. Not that we don't try to work on the other areas as well, but the numbers and the representation in the community are very low in those areas. So sometimes it's just better to show you like a pie chart or something to give you a better visual. So this visual here shows the community on the left side of 18% minority representation or people of color. And LFUCG's composition is about 30%. So that's a very good number overall that we have that kind of representation in our classified civil service. One thing that the federal government makes us do is that they have us place our employees into what's called job families because they collect data on job family availability throughout the metropolitan area. So this is a comparison of available job family in the community vis-a-vis what's in our classified civil service system. So as you look down on, I'll just go across the top one, officials and administrators. We have 86 employees in that category, 14 are classified civil service people of color. That's about a 16.28% number, and the community is at about 8.34%, so there we're overrepresented. As we are in all of those, all categories on the far right, except category number five, which again is a statistically insignificant number because it is the non-sworn in the divisions of fire, police, and corrections and only 26 employees. So if there was one more minority in that group, we would be exceeding the goal in terms of matching or exceeding the labor market in the area. So this is the data that the federal government asks for that we submit regarding race and ethnicity. And it's very favorable for us far classified civil service employees. And just to give you an idea of what kind of jobs are in these various classifications here on the far left, Here's just an example of some of those that fall into those categories. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because there's 369 classifications in the classified civil service. And we have to look at each of those classifications in terms of their job descriptions and how the federal government defines all these to properly place them into the category. So here's the slide that we really feel that we can make some improvements on and make some inroads. And so let me explain this and take a little bit of time with it. So this slide breaks down by my quartile, by pay quartile, the various race or ethnic group. The top table and the bottom table are exactly the same. The top table is basically the raw data, and the bottom table is the percentage. Instead of using the raw data, it's a percentage. So let me focus on the bottom table, the percentages. So of the, for instance, of those in the white category, quartiles, they're fairly evenly distributed at 19% and the low quartile, 24%, 27%, and 31%. That's of all the white employees in the classified civil service system. For the black employees, you'll see that 40% of the black employees are in the first quartile, 29% in the second quartile, which makes roughly about 70% in the lower two quartiles, and about 30% in the upper two pay quartiles. We really would like to smooth that a little bit. And what we have, what I'm going to explain to you later on, is to try to put in some initiatives that we think is going to move the needle and move it in that direction. So this is the area that we want to work on. You'll notice the Asians next to you, they do have a disproportionate number in the high pay quartile. However, again, there's only 13 Asian in that category, so it's not totally a statistically sound number. So one of the things that is critical to look at when you're talking about pay, because you can go to any survey, any survey, and you can Google it. there's hundreds of them that will tell you that the higher level of your education, people with bachelor's degrees, will over their lifetime, on average, make more money than people that just have a high school diploma or a GED. That's a fact. So it's interesting. So it would make sense from that standpoint that those that are in the higher paid quartiles require a higher level of education. And therefore, you would find people with bachelor's degrees or higher level of educations in those higher paid quartiles. That's not a stretch. That's a reasonable assumption. So what you see here is that a third of our positions require a bachelor's degree, two-thirds do not. That's of all of our classified positions. So it's important to look then at the community labor statistics, and this is from the 2019 American survey. It's a product of the census survey. And you'll see that in the second line from the top there on the left-hand column, that there's about 90%, there's about 90,000 age 25 and older people who have a bachelor's degree in this area. Of that 90,000, 77,000 are 85%, I think that's 85%, about 85% are white. About 6% are black, are African American, and another 6% are Asian. So when you look at from a recruiting standpoint, pragmatically speaking, it's realistic to go, you have a smaller pool you have to draw from. So what do you have to do to get to those so you can move the needle and penetrate those higher job classifications with minorities and people of color? We've got a plan to help move that and I'm going to get into that. Again, this is a visual on what we deal with in terms of people who have bachelor's degrees. Now, one thing that we do in the government that a lot of organizations do not do is that we allow for what's called an equivalent combination. So for people who are not fortunate enough to be able to get an education, a formal education, we can use related experience as a substitute for education. And that's a real plus. And that's a plus for us. And in 2014, when we went through the new compensation plan, we looked at these jobs, we looked at the job descriptions for moving in equivalent combinations. And I don't have the number right, but it's at least 90% or more of our positions that require a bachelor's degree do allow for accumulate equivalent combinations. So that's a plus. Where that does become a problem is that a lot of outside organizations don't do that. They have a requirement for a bachelor's degree, and there's no substitutions. So when somebody comes to us, they don't have the bachelor's degrees or they have to start at a lower pace, lower level with us. They don't come in with the experience unless they have the degree already. So we also wanted to look at promotional opportunities within the Classified Civil Service. The Classified Civil Service is a very regimented process. So we follow the rules to the T on classified, all over, but particularly on classified civil service. And so we wanted to look back five years, not focus just on 2020. I don't think anybody really wants to focus on 2020. So we went back five years. We saw that there were 638 promotions, 147 of them were people of color, or 23%. Again, this is a good number. It's consistent with our community and it's consistent with our classified civil service employee base of employees. For promotions, it's run by ordinance as you know, 7% for the first promotion, for the first pay grade, 10% if it's two pay grades, and then if it's beyond two pay grades, another 2% for each additional pay grade. That was an improvement that we made over the last compensation survey that we did. We improved on that in terms of allowing for an additional 2%. And then the requirements for the minimums are spelled out in 21-6, and they refer to the specifications in the job descriptions. So that's kind of the promotional qualifications that we use. So what do we need to do to focus on needed and our need to address diversity in the higher paying classifications? Externally, what we can do is effectively market a competitive salary, benefits, growth opportunities, work-life balance training, and then target and expand our advertising abilities and our areas, our venues. Internally, we can make sure that our promotions are accessible to everyone, create a pipeline. This is critical in terms of being able to promote minorities and people of color up through the ranks. We have to widen that pipeline if we can. So especially in this recruiting environment that I'm going to talk about in just a minute, We need to make sure we have a safe and welcoming environment and initiatives for increased training. So how do we expand our potential reach to candidates? We have started many of these. Some of these we are in the process of contacting, but we've started LinkedIn and Facebook. We're forming partnerships with various publications. The Kentucky Latino Magazine, some of these ideas were given to us from Council Member Jennifer. We appreciate some of the information she gave us. We utilize professional Facebook and other social media groups. An example, not the only one in the room is a good professional Facebook board. We use diversityworking.com and we're ramping up recruitment efforts at historically black colleges and universities. We're taking every opportunity. We've recently participated in a job fair that Council Member Jake McCurran and Council Member James Brown were involved with over at Douglas Park. We've taken every opportunity we can to reach everywhere we can. We're going to have a presence at various events, participate in Minority Business Expo, and ensure diversity is on our interview panels. So this is a long list. I kind of blew through it there, but this will make an impact on us in terms of recruiting from the minority community. But I must say also that we have to expand our recruiting efforts, frankly, everywhere. because if you go to the store, you see anything, you know, anything, everywhere you go, it's help wanted, you know. It's having trouble getting people. That's fact. So then we want to have a strategy for improvement, retention, and promotion. So here is what we can do internally. I talked to you about the external. This is the internal. We're doing this diversity and inclusion workshop that I think will be kicked off very quickly. Millennium Learning Concepts was, they were selected as the RFP to do that and I think that'll start later this year. Expand offerings of the academy to gain one year supervisor experience. What does that mean? I don't know if anybody knows what that means, so let me explain it briefly. We offer now what we call an academy. Here HR does this academy, it's 60 hours of classroom work. If an employee goes through this 60 hours of classroom work, they will get one year credit for supervisory experience. This is really important because if a person's in a position, they never had supervisory experience, but they've got the capability to promote up. But how did they get the supervisory experience? This is one way they can get it. They can get one year, if they go through this academy, 60 hours, it's a great way to do that. And we have jobs that require one or two years experience in order to promote up. Launch navigating your next job with LFUCG. This is something that we did a while back, maybe a month ago or so. We put it up online, so it's a little helpful tool kit, booklet 33 35 pages something like that we're going to make a little presentation video presentation out of it but it has tips about how to interview if you if you want to promote up you still have to interview like you would outside you have to have those skill you have to have that skill set this is going to be something that will help people prepare for interviews look at how they how to advance their career and evaluation of what they're interested in terms of their work preference. So those are all things that we are certainly, we're excited about. And we think that that will help since our lower pay quartiles are heavily loaded with minority and people of color. we're hopeful that that's who will be taking advantage of a lot of these and and will provide an avenue and a pipeline to to promote up and then expand our wrap sir maxwell yes on one second and colleagues that we had given him extra time because this is a very lengthy presentation but if my colleagues would allow somebody make a motion for five more minutes just to be proper I would appreciate it. Chair, I move to give another five minutes for the presentation. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Is there a second, please? Second. Well, there was plenty of them, so we'll choose Council Member Sheehan, and thank you so much. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Maxwell. Sure. Thank you. So the RAP program is basically a program that we set up a little while ago to help identify critical positions where we can fill in in the event someone would leave quickly. So we train people on competencies to do that. It's usually a number of people on certain job competencies, certain key positions. So the RAP program is more focused on making sure that we have business continuity and we have seamless transition. Whereas opposed to what we want to start a mentorship program is focused more on an individual and this was an idea as CEO Hamilton said it came from our civil service commission. We are excited about the implementation this is not going to be something where we say Mary you're the mentor and Billy you're the mentee and follow them around and you know that's not that kind of program the kind of program is going to be training for the mentor for the mentee there's going to be it's 11 step process that we've outlined and it's going to it's going to offer someone who completes this mentorship also another year of supervisor experience for person for purposes of qualifying so this this is this is huge it's it's going to to really help us and we're very excited about it. Competitive wages are, and I don't want to forget because I think it's very important. These initiatives are the mentorship program and expanding our academy by being able to do maybe two or even three of those a year. That's only possible because the council was able to provide another training resource for us and we appreciate that very much and it's going to pay off. There's going to be a payback on that, I guarantee you. So thank you for that. But the second thing is the competitive wages. We have to be competitive and where we run into trouble is where we go periods without any increases. negatively affects our pay grades. We went really 36 months between pay increases from June, July of 2018 was the last increase. And down there at 2021, we will have on a 3% merit increase. It should be approved here shortly and 2% on the structure increase. So those years that we went through significantly made recruiting more challenging. And so I think that's something that needs to be kept in mind. And then just to summarize here, we're going to continue to analyze data. Our departments and divisions are going to be made aware of their demographic data on a quarterly basis. We're going to enhance the branding. Stacey Diamond's group has done a great job in helping our jobs page and sprucing it up a bit. We're broadening our recruitment efforts to reach underrepresented groups, as I mentioned earlier. We're enhancing professional development opportunities through the Navigating Your Next Job Wrap program and mentorship program. And we need to focus on competitive salary and benefits as well. But finally, the last thing that I just want to add is that it's really critical that we increase our employee base. And I can tell you, I was telling CEO Hamilton the other day, I just pulled randomly a May jobs list, what we call an eligibility list. And what that is is when we run an advertisement, our generalists screen those applicants for the minimum qualifications. Once they reach the minimum qualifications, they go on the eligibility list. Then they go over to the Civil Service Commission for certification. I look at those before they go to the Civil Service Commission and when they come back. But I can tell you, I have seen in the last four years, primarily when we went through this period of no increases, our eligibility lists are significantly declining. The one that I happened to pull for May had 13 jobs on it. Four of those 13 jobs had one candidate, one candidate. And only two of those 13 jobs had more than 10 candidates. And it's typical. It's typical of what we're seeing. And it's really an issue, and we have to, one of the things, we have to blitz our recruiting effort. We have to be rigorous. We have to be intentional, aggressive about recruiting. And we also have to, you know, find ways to increase our eligibility and to make us a preferred employer. that's that's the reality of what we're dealing with and trying to compete for people in today's market and I don't think it's going to get any better anytime soon so thank you very much for listening I really appreciate your consideration thank you mr. Maxwell for this and NCAO Hamilton for this wonderful presentation and very important matter now colleagues I'll open up the floor for conversation councilmember Baxter thank you chair and thank you both for this presentation. I think this is a conversation that's very important for us to have. I really like the idea of the mentorship program. I think that's a great opportunity for us. My question is, have you all given any thought to how the mentee will still complete their normal everyday activities while participating in the mentorship program? Yes, that's a great question. We have outlined and went over with the Civil service commission 11 point process we haven't got quite into that detail but that is going to be a challenge for sure but we think it's important enough that we're going to make it part of you know part of what they do in their everyday duties and and incorporate that in sometimes when you add duties in and they just become part of the job that's what we're hoping to happen with this mentorship program but that that is one of the challenges for sure okay i appreciate it thank you thank you chair thank you uh councilmember plowman thank you chair thank you for the presentation that was a lot of good ideas and you can tell a lot of work went into that and i can't wait to see these things take off i was wondering and i thought i saw this in here where you mentioned women in the same phrase of people of color. Did you take a look at where women are, how they fit into this analysis and pay and everything? I know we've talked about that before a few years ago. No, that wasn't part of the data that we were looking at. We do have data on that, but I was asked to do a presentation just on race and ethnicity, and so I limited to just that. Still ran over by 15 minutes. Yeah, it'd be interesting to look at some of those numbers because I did, I thought I saw that reference somewhere here, but if we don't have the information, we don't have it. On this expand program that you mentioned, you said you, not expand, what did I say? Academy, I'm sorry, Academy, and you talk about expanding that moving forward. So currently, how do folks find out about that? How many have gone through it? or some background on that? Okay, sure. We publish a list of when we're going to do it and the classes that are involved. It usually fills up very quickly, and I don't know the number right offhand, but I think we take 20 or 25. And we used to be able to do it two or three times a year, but we've had to cut back to one because of workload in our training area. area but now I believe we're going to be able to go at least two and possibly three times a year that would be our goal and each class would have a maximum of 20 or 25 20 or 25 three times a year that's great good idea thank you very much it always fills up I mean people really want to do that okay thank you thank you chair I recognize Councilmember McCurron thank you chair thank you director for the presentation great information and like Councilmember baxter i'm very intrigued about the mentorship program um in my my business life we've worked uh doing different mentorships in my past and whatnot but one of them was a reverse mentorship and i don't know if this something has ever been considered in this as well but it's similar to sometimes you have generational differences that are paired together and you help teach each other So maybe difference from cultures or different parts, divisions, if you mix them up, that not necessarily everybody's in the same division, and that might be the focus is to keep it in the same division, but also be able to cross paths too and have a different understanding of different entities inside of our city government. I didn't know if this was something that's ever been considered or would be a thought for the future. It sounds, I've heard of it before. We're not far enough in the development stage, but I think that's something that should certainly be considered, absolutely. That's awesome to hear. I know that it's had great success for retention, but it also helps us understand our differences between our generations. So I appreciate you looking into that. Thank you, Director. Will do, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. you mr. Maxwell for the presentation and Sally and CAO Hamilton for working to get the information to have this presentation today and I really appreciate the preamble before the presentation to actually lay out what it is that we're looking at and what we're talking about from the information and the data shared today it looks like in the past we as a city have done a good job hiring minorities as well as retention, keeping them employed. It looks like the challenge that we have and what we haven't been as good at is promotional opportunities. There's a huge disparity there as well as wage growth opportunities as well. I'm excited to hear about the RAP program, the mentorship program I think are good initiatives. But there's another element that I think we haven't addressed or talked about, and I think it's the promotional boards that actually look and interview candidates for promotion. Is there any conversations or any thoughts, ideas on how we could standardize those or improve those boards to provide maximum opportunity for promotional opportunities for minorities? Okay, so our promotional process in the civil service system is, positions are advertised both externally and internally. So in terms of a promotion, all employees have to apply and compete with all those on the eligibility list. They actually have to apply and they have to be certified by the civil service commission as well. So the panels that we do to interview are no different than what we would a promotional opportunity for any other position. Can you second everyone? Sure. I think that, and what John has said through this whole presentation and what I have seen in all the work, is we all have been doing things just like we are. You know, we have been advertising for jobs in places where I would look or you would look. We have not, and you helped us there, Council Member Reynolds, we are not advertising where people of color and other ethnic groups are. So what we wanted to do was to do that. We have on our panels that select people, we look at some of those, we look at those panels and we're making great slides. great strides, but they're like us. So what we're doing is we're choosing people that we are comfortable with. It's human nature. You're gonna choose people that you're comfortable with. So Glenn and Arthur have worked really, really hard to say that when you're gonna do these panels on selecting people, moving people up on these things, you have to have a diversity in your panel. and we are just insisting on it. We have also asked our directors and commissioners today to watch this presentation because, you know, a lot of times people don't know those numbers. They don't know unless they're really thinking about it and seeing it on that screen what is really happening. And so we wanted them to see this because we've got to have them conscious of this. It won't just, we can't move this needle if it's Glenn and John and the mayor. And that's not where it is. It's got to be everybody's got to pull to this together. I'm sorry, that's a speech, but it's just sort of the way we, I don't know what we think it can work. And I appreciate that answer. I think that lets me know that it's on your mind and that you're conscious about it. I think we just have to look at, if we can, a way to standardize that to make sure that it's on everybody's mind. I think the diversity training that is coming to the city is going to help us holistically think about that and be conscious about it. But we ran into the same challenges when we were talking about minority recruiting and public safety a few years ago before Mr. Lucas came on board. And it's still, I mean, you can still see it not just in public safety, but you can see it across the board. So I think we've got to continue to have conversations about that. The compensation issue is a huge issue. And it could be a whole issue on its own. You know, I think there's been some conversation about doing additional reclasses or looking at the whole compensation system. but are there any thoughts or ideas of how we can address the compensation issue in the more immediate future? We, that is, that is a huge issue that's on my mind all the time. We need to have more conversations with you all on this compensation issue. We need to come to you and talk to you a little bit about various systems and what those systems do. But right now, and John feels, and he will tell you, he feels very confident that our compensation system is fine. The problem is, and you can say it better than I, but I'll just put it in my words. The problem is we're not doing what we're supposed to do with it. That compensation study said, here it is, but you've got to keep updating it. You've got to keep changing with the market, and we're not doing any of that. We're just letting it sit there. So consequently, it gets worse and worse. For instance, we ran, John did surveys on our people like equipment operators at that level. And it's about a $600,000 bump all across the board that we need to do. You know, you need to have the funds to be able to do that because this goes right to base. Next would be directors. that that was I think who would be surveyed this year would be directors and to see where we were in that market but we have to commit that if we keep our same compensations system Councilmember Brown we have to commit to this yearly look at certain job classifications and move them Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you for the presentation. We've been dealing with this for every year I've been here. And I commend you for what you're looking at, how to make change the next couple years on some of the programs. And I really want to commend you for that. But things get under my skin is when I look, being a former commissioner of housing and building construction. And those jobs are out there to make sure that building is built safe or that house is built safe and how much they make. And as I look at the job description here, we had a job description for a building inspector for $1449 starting off. these are the parts up well it depends on but well then right underneath it a buddy of mine sent me a picture of a guy of a hamburger joint opening up here in luskens and making $15 an hour and you ask why people that I don't mean to put it in a bad way it's just we got to be creative and make these jobs how important they are to this community and for instance those jobs and I'm just giving an example for building inspector they make sure that that house is built safe at there can be and they're involving lives and they're involving lives with building inspection. But when you start off with salaries like that, you wonder why we're not getting filled. And you wonder why people don't come here. I think to me we got to start looking back and I appreciate you all. When I was a commissioner a few years ago back, we had CDL license. They were doing way more jobs than certain other class was. And I had a fight like crazy and I thank you all for doing that. We stepped them way up because, and that made them a career path. Whoever wanted to make more money was able to take this job and be promoted up and made more money. I don't know if we do enough of those. I hope we do. I think learning from that incident might be a way to show how we can get people motivated moving up. And if you don't have anything there to move them up and you see those things out there that they can make more money and These are jobs every day flipping. And I think all the jobs are important. But to me, there are certain jobs that I have a hard time seeing. We're making a lot less, I mean, making less money. It just is a bad example. And that, to me, we've got to restructure that payment. And I know Charlie's sitting back here. He's having a hard time finding engineers. We're having a hard time finding IT people. It's across the board, guys. All these jobs are important. But when you read an article and you see you can go make a heck of a lot more money somewhere else, they're going to take that job. And maybe we're just going to have to restructure it and figure out how we can be creative. And I know how bad money is. We're going to be, after this storm goes through, we're going to be back to reality. We're going to have a shortfall. but this pandemic has taught us a lot in my opinion on watching these employees how they've worked and how we need to use them and how they work from home and still be able to accomplish what they do I think we may figure out maybe stay at home they don't have to drive I mean you all just need to think out of the box on these jobs I just don't think we think out I think you're on the right track now but it burns me when I see real important jobs they're getting way less than what they deserve. I think that's a message that no wonder nobody wants to come work here. That's just my opinion. But I do appreciate what you all have done, and I think you're on the right track. I just think it's been going on since. I mean, I don't mean to pick on you. I picked on the ones back there 30 years ago. And we had people who had been here for 10 years having the same job, making the fact then it was $8 an hour, bring somebody in making $10 and I do the same job it's but you all fixed a lot of that and I'm glad you have but I still think we're going a little bit back on some of these jobs we need to be more be aggressive in how we fix those new jobs that's just me thank you thank you councilmember Reynolds thank you chair and thank you director Maxwell I'm gonna go back to something that councilmember pluman touched on on page 37 it talks about it does say women or people of color and I know that when we talk about minority statistics we have grouped women into that I'm not necessarily in agreement with that but that's what's been done in the past so I think if we're looking at those numbers and we're including women, that's going to change the way that picture, that breakdown looks quite a bit. And I just wanted to pull that out and make that. I don't know if anyone saw that. We do track that data, but we didn't include it in the presentation because it wasn't asked for. Okay, well, it is included in the presentation. That's why I'm bringing it up. It is. On page 37, it says the data available, these goals are determined with an underutilization of analysis of incumbency and relevant labor market data available of qualified women or people of color. The data that was provided included women. Oh, yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Okay. So this is data that we do provide to the federal government, and that's a federal government form. And it does include women, but we didn't include it here because it was specifically asked to focus on ethnicity and race. So we extrapolated that. So on the breakdown on that same page, it does not include women? No. Well, yes, it includes women, yes. But not as a separate category? Not as a separate category. Not as a minority category. Correct. Okay. And thank you. And I do appreciate the steps that you all are taking to try to reach outside of the normal way to advertise jobs. And I do think that there's even more ways that we could do that, and I'm happy to help with that as well. There's a lot of radio stations. There's publications. there's places on social media where minorities are that maybe you know aren't mainstream and things like that so I'd be happy to continue to help with that because I do think it's important that we continue expanding on how we reach people so we really appreciate the help you've already given us and we'll be we'll definitely be in touch thank you all right councilmember James Brown Thank you, Chair. It looks like the development of a new mentorship program is targeted to launch in June 2022. Who's going to run that program or who's going to be the lead person on that? We are thinking that this program is going to be extremely important and the person that we hire for the training position is going to focus on that initially as part of the criteria on which we hire this person that's going to be his or her focus as we roll this program out okay and then in the presentation it also recognizes ordinance that lists the requirements for the civil service positions is there also an ordinance that governs the promotional boards or the hiring boards or is it in that same ordinance do you know I'm not sure there's a specific ordinance about that I don't believe there is but the the 21-6 that's referenced just references to job descriptions and then contained in those job descriptions are the minimum requirements for the position that's part of the it's all part the comprehensive plan. If there's not an ordinance, I certainly will give you my word, I'll pledge to you my word that we will put out something that standardizes this and makes sure that we are inclusive on our boards, on our selections committees. Okay. That's sufficient. I promise you. All right. Thank you, CAO. Thank you. Director. All right. Thank you all. And I am really trying hard to keep us within the two hours and which has been I'm really trying hard so I'm going to save my comments because I'm just really trying hard to stay within the 20 you know the two hours so but I really appreciate this presentation it's really good and I think that we're looking in the right direction and I think that there might even be another opportunity for more discussion on this in the next few months, too, I think, because this is a really good start. And, I mean, I think there are a lot more issues that we really do have to take into consideration that are evolving around our hiring process. One is, I think, the change in our retirement system, I think, has had a big impact, too. So I think there are more things to discuss on this matter, But I am so pleased that you all are thinking through this and to start really delving into what we can do to make our government more inclusive and to provide better opportunities. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. And lastly, but not leastly, Mr. Lucas, our final presentation is about the LFUCG diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. And if you will recall, in our last committee, we actually had a really good, robust discussion on this. And you all should have a resolution in front of you that was laid on the dais for your consideration. So, Mr. Lucas, I'm going to turn it over to you, and thank you so much. Okay, thank you, Council Member Lamb, and thank you all for the opportunity to come back and speak about the diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. And I'll go ahead and get right into the presentation here. As far as the agenda, what I'm going to do is review the presentation that I gave back in April of this year. Also talk a little bit about the updated statement and some of the changes that we've made as far as suggestions and recommendations from you as a committee. Also within the presentation, we have an action plan, or we actually have action plans for all of the bullet points that we have within the statement. And we have one work plan example that I will go over. And then towards the end, we'll talk about a timeline, and then hopefully as time permits, I'll try to answer any questions that you all may have. As far as the presentation that I gave back in April, there were several suggestions or recommendations that was made. And one of them was changing the wording of citizens to residents. And, you know, much to my surprise when it was mentioned that when we use the word citizens, we have people within our community or residents that do not feel like they're a part of our community. So truly appreciate the suggestion and recommendation there. Also, we were asked to develop and present action plans for each of the commitments that we're making within the statement. and also develop and demonstrate a work plan, which I do have an example within this presentation. And one thing that is not on this slide, and I apologize for it not being up there, there was also a suggestion made based upon us using the word continue within our original statement because the word continue, according to the suggestion, was that it suggests that what we were doing is adequate. and we definitely don't want anyone to think that currently what we're doing, that's all we need to do. There is more work to do. So within the statement, you will find words such as commit to develop, increase outreach, improve our ability, and those are all words that were added into the statement based upon the suggestion about utilizing the word commit. Now, Council Member Lamb, I don't know if you want me to read through the statement or not, or are we okay moving forward? It's up to you. I think that if we can just, I mean, we've had the packet before us, and it's on the screen and before the public, so I think that go ahead and move through the next, please. Okay. Yes, ma'am. So we'll go to the next slide. As far as action plans, and this was one of the bullet points where we talk about actively seek to recruit employees and volunteers from diverse backgrounds by a variety of means. And Director Maxwell talked a little bit about this, but within the bullet points down here, we're talking about partnerships with Minority Business Enterprise Liaison, which is Sherita Miller. One of the things that we've talked about is participating in the Minority Business Expo to actually recruit professionals to LFUCG as far as also reaching out for our boards and commissions and handing out information. And I won't go through all of these. We're talking about using various types of social media, which has already been mentioned. Down Middleways, enhanced distribution lists to share job and volunteer opportunities. We're planning on participating, you know, sending out information to the Pride Community Services Organizations, Veterans Affairs, Commission for People with Disabilities. One of the things that I've learned since doing this research down at EKU, there's a fraternity called Sigma Lambda International Fraternity, which is a Latino-based fraternity, And we will definitely make sure that we're getting in communication and contact with them to pass out information in hopes that they'll pass it on to their current members as well as those that have retired. I mean retired, that have left school. Recruitment fairs, Council Member Lamb and Council Member James Brown will probably remember this. Back in 2019, we had a recruitment fair for our boards and commissions. And I believe, well, we headed out at the senior center, and we had about 70 to 75 people to come out and inquire about our boards and commissions. And I know from that event, I can think of at least four minorities that have joined boards and commissions. Obviously, last year, because of COVID, we weren't able to do anything. But these are some of the things that we have done in the past that I think we need to get back to and continue doing. The next slide here is actually the work plan example, and this is something that we did back in 2017. If you look at the action item up there, this is talking about recruiting from historically black colleges and universities. And the reason you see Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia, these are all states that border the state of Kentucky, and they have historically black colleges within them. And within three to four hours, we can drive to those locations and participate in recruiting events or hopefully go into the classroom to talk with students. Within our example here, we'll list the persons that are responsible. Here you see my name, HR, other divisions if possible. And within this particular example, both police and fire did participate in going to Central State and Kentucky State University. As I said, we started back in 2017. This is something that will be ongoing. We can't rest on our laurels. This is something that we must continue on. As far as the resources, we've been talking a lot about budgets and having the resources to attend these events. and that's very important. Then we'll be looking at our desired outcome and desired outcome is to continue building our working relationships and partnerships between LFUCG and HBCUs. And one of the things about recruiting that we all must understand that it's about relationships and partnerships. It's not about going to one particular event and then we don't communicate or talk to those individuals for another two to three years or just when we need something. So we're looking at developing partnerships here. And then from an evaluation standpoint, at the bottom there, compare a job posting applicant pool to current labor market, and Director Maxwell has already talked about the labor market. Start to track how applicants hear about employment opportunities. And I know Dan James, the talent acquisition manager, is already in communications with IT to get something set up in our system so we'll know where people are hearing about job opportunities within LFUCG. The next action plan here, actively seek to strengthen and maintain an inclusive and equitable work environment by offering workshops. I know that the second reading for the diversity and inclusion workshop was completed last Thursday, and we need to get in contact with, I guess, Director Todd Slayton to see the process moving forward there. Then the third activity is actively seek to recruit and increase outreach of diverse businesses in the procurement process. I believe all of you all know or may have spoken with Sherita Miller, who is our MBE liaison, And we're talking about working more closely with her because already Charita works with a lot of different organizations and agencies such as the University of Kentucky, Fayette County Public Schools, Commerce Lexington, and several others. And in fact, as far as the disparity and availability study, next week on the 23rd, we have our kickoff meeting as far as the company that's going to be doing the disparity study to, I guess, if you will, lay the foundation of groundwork moving forward. And I'll be a part of that meeting as well. Then the next action plan, the last action plan, actively strive to serve as a local and national model for equity for all residents within our community. And I truly believe through the work of Mayor Gordon, you all as a committee and council members, as well as the administration, we're taking some strives in the right direction. First thing we've done, we've acknowledged that Lexington's not a perfect city. We are a very good city. We're not perfect, but we still have work to do. And I think that was evident by the Mayor's Commission for Racial Justice and Equality last year when we had the five subcommittees and they came up with 54 recommendations that they felt we as a city need to look into and try to improve. Also talking about the partnership with the University of Kentucky where they have allowed Lisa Higgins Hoard, the VP of Community Engagement, to work with us on trying to help implement some of those recommendations. And that's a partnership between Mayor Gordon and Dr. Capilouto, the president of the University of Kentucky. The mayor has also talked about having a permanent commission, not just making this a one-time thing. So I think this all plays into us moving forward. And then many of you all have probably already heard about the Mayor's Workgroup on Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index Score. And this is a workgroup, and I'm a part of this workgroup, that we look into policies and ordinances and try to make sure that Lexington is a welcoming place for people of the LGBTQ community. and you know I have 2013 that dash 53 and 2020 dash 95 in 2013 we received a score of 53 percent as a city and if you look at our score from last year we received a score of 95 which I think the behind the work scenes that we're doing is goes hand in hand with what we're trying to do here with this statement And then finally down there, and I'm not sure if it's still pending approval, but the mayor's office is looking to bring someone in a position of senior equity officer, which would be an advisor to the mayor. And then finally, as far as moving forward with a timeline, obviously, you know, we would love the adoption of a statement via resolution that the law department has already prepared. We'd like to get full council's consideration and then have the resolution finalized if there are any edits that need to be made. And then from a communications statement standpoint, we want to make sure that all of our employees are aware of the statement. So we would communicate this statement via email to all of our employees as well as post it on our internal website. and then have a coordination with the media, have a press release, newsletters, social media posts. So this is something that we're trying to publicize not only to the city of Lexington, state of Kentucky, and abroad, and then finally publish the statement on our LFUC website for all to see when they click on our website. And at this time, thank you. You rolled really good. Thank you so much. Now, colleagues, in light of 12 minutes, I know I'm putting the pressure on you all, but does anybody have any questions or suggestions? We do have a resolution in front of us, and I would like for us to consider this resolution. And so, Council Member Maloney. All right, there's a motion by Council Member Maloney, seconded by Council Member Reynolds. Is there any discussion on that motion? There being none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you all. Wow. Thank you all. Now, there's one other caveat to this. Okay, we don't meet again until August, so would there be an appetite for reporting it out? at the June 22nd work session in light of the timing of not waiting until August? That was so moved. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kay made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Council Member Legree seconded. Is there any discussion on that motion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? You guys are rock stars. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Lucas, for bringing this very important information back to us. I think our government is going in such a good way, in a good place. We have a lot of work to do, and I think that we are all set to continue the path and just to do the right thing. And so thank you all, and thank you CAO Hamilton and everybody else that's presented today. And a motion to adjourn would be appropriate. Okay. Okay, Councilmember Baxter made a motion, seconded by Councilmember Legere. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.