Deputy Speaker Williams questions OMB on racial equity budgeting tools

So OMB's racial equity plan states that the agency intends to develop tools by 2027 that would allow city agencies to incorporate equity principles into budget requests and planning for the FY28 preliminary budget.

What specifically will those tools look like and how?

Farah-N.-Louis is OMB in developing them.

Sure.

So thank you for your question.

We, as noted in our plan, are committed to having a rubric that OMB uses to systematize, really, how we're looking at

making investments that align with the racial equity plan and making sure that we have a way to screen those new needs that are coming in to be able to say, okay, does it meet this need?

Does it meet this need?

So we are developing that framework now.

We have committed in our plan, which is published in the preliminary racial equity plan, to have that ready for the next budget cycle.

So for the next preliminary budget, it would have been informed by this new framework.

So we're happy to be able to talk to you about it in greater detail as it gets fully developed, but we are committed to having some system and framework for being able to assess

whether a new need comports with the racial equity goals that we put forward in the plans.

I know that your office created a climate assessment to look at the city's budget.

So would it be similar to that assessment?

Would it look a little different?

I think we are looking at climate budgeting as something that could be instructive for how we view the racial equity plans.

As you know, it's something that exists.

It's something that screens for a particular goal of government.

to be able to understand how funds are being invested.

So there are parallels to there, and we will look to that to be instructive in how we develop our plan.

Thank you.

Okay.