June 11, 2019
Since I took office almost three
years ago, I have been consistent in my priorities to make Columbus America’s
Opportunity City. I have focused the attention of my administration – and my
budget – on creating an affordable city with dynamic, inclusive growth, mixed
income neighborhoods that support family stability, and mobility that provides
equity and improves the quality of life for all of our residents.
I have placed a high standard for
the role of diversity and inclusion at the City of Columbus, pushing for
stronger recruitment strategies and tasking leadership to champion the value of
diversity -- because as we all know, we cannot become America’s Opportunity
City until we become America’s Equal
Opportunity City.
We have had successes as one of the
largest employers in the City of Columbus, in recruiting and hiring workers
that reflect the diversity of this great city.
Through outreach and engagement, we
also want to increase the diverse pool of suppliers who compete for City
contracting opportunities. An important part of this work will include the
completion of the Disparity Study, expected later this summer, which will help
us begin to form policies and procedures to help increase supplier diversity.
But we have not been waiting for the
results of the study to continue to move forward. In 2017, we saw a 50%
increase in city spending with minority- and women-owned businesses. In 2018,
we saw another 24% increase over 2017 -- 15.58% of our contracts last year were
awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses.
We still have work to do, but I am
excited about the direction the Office of Diversity and Inclusion is going and
my administration’s commitment to using inclusion as the lens through which we
make all of our decisions.
Click
here to see what each of our departments has been doing to
create a culture of diversity here in this great city we call home.