DENVER — A newly released audit made available Thursday has highlighted some key discrepancies in a Denver department whose mission is to bring more equity to the city government.
The Office of Social Equity and Innovation (OSEI) was first formed in September of 2019. The year before, Mayor Michael Hancock had announced the formation of a citywide equity platform lead by an equity leadership team.
Since then, OSEI has made it its mission to evaluate Denver’s systems, policies and practices to increase social equity and minimize institutional, structural or systematic racism within the city government.
However, the new audit concluded that the office is lacking in key components that help establish the foundation of any department within the city.
“What we found was, there was a lot of turnover in terms of the leadership, but the organization has no statement of goals and objectives, no policies and procedures, no metrics to determine, am I achieving the goals and objectives set out for the organization?” said Denver auditor Timothy O’Brien.
First, the audit determined that the office lacks a detailed strategic plan and other foundations needed for effective governance. It concluded that the office was missing documentation of program design, a citywide strategic plan that aligns with the executive order that created it, formal policies and procedures for day-to-day operations and a clear layout of roles and responsibilities for staff.
Second, the audit determined that OSEI has not provided enough clarity to empower staff in their duties. It said that because of a lack of clarity, the office cannot ensure that city agencies are complying with its directives on things like training or creating a racial equity action plan.
Third, the audit found that the office does not have a plan to ensure clear, consistent communication with other city agencies. It did say that the office generally communicates well with other agencies but determined that there are no formalized communication practices.
“They should be a lot further along, and these are fundamentals, these are just basic building blocks of how you run an organization,” O’Brien said.
During a public presentation Thursday, O’Brien went on to talk about some of the challenges he faced in conducting this audit, saying he wasn’t given all of the documents he needed or requested to be able to do his job thoroughly.
“In conducting the audit, we had less than full cooperation from the leadership of this office,” O’Brien said. “Those are very difficult circumstances in which to conduct an audit.”
O’Brien says he has been given access to all of the requested documents now, but they have not changed his opinion or the determinations in the report.
Denver’s Chief Equity Office and the executive director of OSEI, Dr. Aisha Rousseau, doesn’t disagree with some of the findings of the report but says it did not tell the full picture of the office’s formation or the challenges it faced in getting started.
“We acknowledge that there are some foundational things, foundational documents, foundational resources that need to be in place, but it will be a misnomer to be to perceive that this office, and the leaders of this office, were not doing equity work, they just weren't doing it in the traditional sense,” Rousseau said.
One of the biggest hurdles during the infancy of the office: The coronavirus pandemic. As the city of Denver moved to quickly respond to the pandemic, much of the staff of the equity office was assigned to the Emergency Operations Center to help with the city’s response.
The employees spent more than 200 days working within the operations center to ensure equity and access in things like testing, vaccinations, emergency food deliveries and supporting businesses own by people of color affected by the pandemic.
“The prior leadership pivoted, because it was critical to identify how communities of color could be addressed to a pandemic,” she said.
She also insists that no equity office in the country would say that this type of work is done in a linear fashion and agrees that the work might not have been done in a traditional sense but that the office was and is working toward its ultimate goal.
Rousseau agrees that there are areas within the report that need growth and says she is currently working toward that, however she has concerns about the timing of this report, particularly given the newness of the office.
“I take great concern with the critique, particularly of two Black women who had the charge of responding to building equity on a shoestring. I understand his concern. I don't agree with it,” she said.
Rousseau has only been in charge of the department since last October. Two previous executive directors had previously taken the helm and were blamed in the report for some of these discrepancies. However, in an interview with Denver7, O’Brien was more hesitant to point fingers, saying he was more focused on moving forward.
She also disagrees with O’Brien’s assertions that he was not cooperated with and says her staff turned over everything in a timely manner.
In a three-page letter, Mayor Hancock also disagreed with the audit’s timing, saying he normally welcomes audits even if they are critical in nature but that he believes this one was undertaken in haste and was done without an appreciation for the challenges OSEI faced.
“During the worst public health crisis in modern memory, it would have been dereliction of duty for any city agency to prioritize strategic or communications plans over the mission of Denver city government, to put every shoulder to the wheel, to support our residents during those difficult times while absorbing emergency budget cuts,” the letter read.
It went on to say that the audit was premature and that performing it at a later time when OSEI was more established and more fully integrated into city departments would have provided a much more beneficial review of how things could be improved.
The report did lay out a series of recommendations for the office to follow to better lay the foundations for its policies moving forward. The office did not disagree with the recommendations and will work to implement them.
Both O’Brien and Rousseau agree that the office has an important role to play in the city, Rousseau just stresses that it will take some time to get there.
“We're talking about changing the course of a ship that is 100 years in the making and so my team is committed to providing these foundational documents because we acknowledge that that's important,” she said.
