Item B: HRC - Recommendations from HR Listening Project

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investigation and enforcement of their human rights code; however, these powers are employed inconsistently amongst the Commissions and will be discussed further in later sections. City Office or Staff: There is a significant variation among the City Governments considered in this study in the extent to which it funds and prioritizes equity and human rights work; although as a general trend, staff find their programs or offices to be under constant threat of budget cuts and under-staffing. Only Fort Collins does not have an office affiliated with its Human Relations Commission and offers no enforcement mechanism or investigative process for complaints of discrimination. There was a change to the City Ordinance in 2001 giving authority to the Human Relations Commission to hear appeals to City Manager decisions regarding claims of discrimination but according to the staff liaison, this function of the Commission is seldom called upon. The remaining cities studied each have an office or department that supports their Human Rights or Human Relations Commission in addition to promoting equity and human rights and providing investigatory and reconciliation services for complaints of discrimination. Larger cities including Tacoma, Washington and Austin, Texas support the largest departments dedicated to equity and human rights each with 8 FTE; Des Moines, Iowa is similar in size but operates on a much smaller budget and tends to rely on AmeriCorps Vistas and interns to augment its capacity. The Director of their Office of Human Rights mentioned that the State Human Rights Commission often absorbs the workload beyond the capacity of their office. Alexandria, Virginia is a smaller city but maintains twice the staff size as Des Moines yet still feels that they are understaffed for the case load they receive. It should be noted that in each of these departments or offices, supporting their Commissions constitutes a small portion of staff workloads and most efforts are directed towards internal policy or acting as a community resource. In some cases there is one dedicated staff or liaison to support the Commission. Enforcement Mechanisms: The responsibility of enforcing the human rights code is the work of both city staff and to a varying degree, the Human Rights or Human Relations Commission in all four cities that have codified enforcement mechanisms in place. The investigatory and enforcement systems in each city tend to be the primary responsibility of staff with opportunities for oversight and power of appeals granted to the Commissions. Each office or department staffs investigation specialists who come from varied professional backgrounds including public safety, law, and human relations, and are charged with managing the caseload. The common trend is for initial intake and assessments to be done by staff in order to assess the allegations made. At this point, before a formal investigation is undertaken, mediation services are offered to the involved parties to negotiate an early settlement of some sort. Among these four programs, mediation services are offered by staff, professional mediators, or trained Commissioners. Where mediation is either unsuccessful or unwanted, the investigative staff is charged with doing an impartial investigation to determine if the accused party is in violation of City Code. It is important to note that the investigative staff does not work on behalf of either party in any of these programs. This process is often directed by the counsel of the City Attorney whose office is the primary legal resource in each of these four programs. Before cases reach the court system, staff tries to reach conciliation between the parties. Typically cases are resolved in either early settlement stages or conciliation after the completed investigation. 4 | Page