State of Oregon spends over $70 Million annually on DEI staff in mission to redistribute resources, power, and opportunity across the state

Oregon – Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a focal point of Oregon government. In 2020 then Governor Kate Brown issued a framework for equity in covid response directing all executive branch agencies to “fully commit to applying the State of Oregon Equity Framework in developing agency-specific strategies and concrete actions to address racial and economic disparities due to COVID-19”. This framework included a definition that “[e]quity acknowledges that not all people, or all communities, are starting from the same place due to historic and current systems of oppression.

Equity is the effort to provide different levels of support based on an individual’s or group’s needs in order to achieve fairness in outcomes. Equity actionably empowers communities most impacted by systemic oppression and requires the redistribution of resources, power, and opportunity to those communities.” The clear implication being that state agencies should use the power of government to preference some communities over others in the distribution of resources, power, and opportunity in an attempt to achieve particular outcomes at the group level.

The Governor later followed this up by issuing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Action Plan. This document set out ten strategies for implementation across state government to achieve DEI goals moving forward. These strategies included all agencies developing an agency-specific racial equity plan, a state DEI infrastructure, changes in budgeting and budgeting processes, using equity in contracting and procurement, and more. One specific element of the plan was instantiating the Racial Justice Council, a powerful advisory council in the Governor’s Office, in state statute. Part of the council’s vision includes health equity involving “Anti-Racist, (Re)Indiginized Systems” in which “White-Bodied People Heal From Internalized White Supremacy + Oppression”.

The council’s website elaborates: “We envision an Oregon in which white-bodied people are willing and able to recognize the costs of maintaining white supremacy culture, racism, and other forms of colonial oppression. In which, white-bodied Oregonians are active and authentic co-conspirators working to end the preventable, inequitable, and disproportionate illness and death Oregon’s Indigenous, Black, and non-Indigenous communities of color experience.”

Oregon DEI Staffing Costs

This emphasis on DEI has come with large increases in staff dedicated to this work across state government, which has continued moving forward under Governor Tina Kotek. Data provided to Right Now Oregon that was gathered by the Department of Administrative Services and provided to the Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO) shows a total of 364 positions, though not all of the positions are currently filled, so the current costs are under what they could be if all the identified positions were filled. There were 307 positions listed with cost information, yielding a total annual cost, including salary and benefits, of $71,337,338.  The average position cost was $232,369.

Applying this average cost to the 57 positions which did not have a position cost listed would bring the total up to $84.6 million. The Legislative Fiscal Office also advises that there could be some positions not captured here due to agency classification methods and that the positions in the Legislative Equity Office are not included. In addition, the Department of Education (ODE) has an Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion which includes 21 budgeted positions (20.18 FTE) at a cost of $10.1 million for the 2023-25 biennium, this would be an approximate cost of $5 million per year.

Combining the data from LFO with ODE brings the position total to 385 with 328 positions with cost information totaling $76.3 million per year. Adding the average cost for the 57 positions in brings the annual cost for DEI positions to $89.6 million.

Four agencies hold the bulk of the DEI positions. Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has 167 positions, Oregon Department of Transportation has 57 positions, Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) has 47, and Oregon Youth Authority (OYA) has 20 positions. Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) also has a double-digit figure with 12 positions.

The top ten highest cost positions account for $4,308,274 with an average cost of $430,827. See the table below for details.

With such a large amount of financial resources, institutional focus, and time being dedicated to DEI in Oregon government the question becomes what the impacts of this sweeping effort to redistribute resources, power, and opportunity using the government are.

DEI at Oregon Health Authority

The Oregon Health Authority issued an Equity Advancement Plan for 2021 – 2023 which included a progress report for 2019 – 2021 along with goals and strategies for the new plan. The overarching goal of the plan is to “eliminate health inequities in Oregon by 2030.” The definition for achieving health equity includes language reflective of Governor Brown’s framework: “The equitable distribution or redistribution of resources and power; and Recognizing, reconciling and rectifying historical and contemporary injustices.” The plan itself identifies the strategies of continuing planning, developing and implementing an equity action plan, and integrating equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility into systems or processes. More specific sub-goals or measures are not provided in the document.

OHA requires that the Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs), which coordinate Oregon Health Plan’s (OHP) local health plans, to have Health Equity Plans. Part of the expectations of the plan seem to align with the strategy of integrating equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility into systems or processes. These include for CCOs to incorporate implicit bias training, and training for cultural competence. OHA includes resources for the CCOs with these expectations.

One resource from OHSU for anti-racism resources includes a recommended reading list topped by Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be An Anti-Racist. Kendi famously advocates for racial discrimination stating “[t]he only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” OHSU also provides a list of “Anti-racism resources for white people” which includes links to materials from many controversial figures like Robin DiAngelo, Peggy McIntosh, and Kimberle Crenshaw.

Another resource in the OHSU list which OHA directs CCOs to for aligning with the requirement for creating a Health Equity Plan is a document titled Continuum on becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization. This shows organizations how to move along a continuum of organizational culture from “An Exclusionary Institution” to a “Fully Inclusive Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization in a Transformed Society”. Steps in the transformation process include developing a “[n]ew consciousness of institutionalized white power and privilege”; “Increasing commitment to dismantle racism and eliminate inherent white advantage”; “Actively recruits and promotes members of groups [that] have been historically denied access and opportunity”; “Redefines and rebuilds all relationships and activities in society, based on anti-racist commitments” ; and more.

It is not precisely articulated in any of these documents or webpages how measures such as these are connected to the stated goal of reducing health disparities.

DEI at Oregon Department of Human Services

The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) has set out goals for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) for 2024 – 2026. The document opens with discussing a commitment to being an “anti-racist” organization by presenting a perspective on the founding of America being based on slavery. “In 2020, the Oregon Department of Human Services committed to becoming an anti-racist organization. What does that mean? To understand this is to first understand the true origins of racism in the United States. Race is deemed a social construct. However, history teaches us it began more as a power construct to protect the interest of those in power. Enslaved Africans and poor whites from Great Britain were brought to Virginia with captured Native Americans to till the land and build a new America while creating wealth for those in power.”

The document goes on to identify detailed strategies for integrating DEI into agency operations at all levels from executive training and budgeting to procurement, contracting, and hiring and promotion. The document does not indicated how these strategies tie into child safety or addressing cases of abuse and neglect, though items like training on the use of interpretative services are identified. The document does not present any recent data or information related to issues of race / ethnicity in the context of child abuse and neglect or other domains of ODHS legislatively defined purpose.

DEI at Oregon Department of Transportation

The first priority listed in Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Strategic Action Plan is equity. Within that priority one of the main goals is economic opportunity which they plan to address by promoting “economic opportunity for Oregonians through transportation investments, including working with businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), women, and others who have been historically and/ or are currently marginalized.​​​” ODOT conducted a BIPOC Contracting Expansion Anti-Oppression Barriers Analysis in 2021. Page 42 of the document shows the results of their disparity study and finds that “methodology used to determine availability in disparity studies can yield artificially low BIPOC firm availability.” A few pages down on pages 44 and 45 under the findings ODOT finds that they had “unequal access to contracting opportunities” and puts contract awards to BIPOC and women-owned firms in one group and contract awards to other firms in a separate group. Additional information specifying their findings is not displayed.

ODOT states in a document titled Equitable Contract Messaging that “[w]e are designing programs that engage Black, Indigenous, People of Color and women owned businesses in the competitive contracting processes. We believe that awarding more contracting and consulting dollars to these businesses will make our transportation system stronger and more aligned with the needs of the communities it serves.”

Right Now Oregon reached out to ODOT about their disparity analysis and BIPOC and woman owned business contracting initiatives. The agency supplied a copy of the full disparity analysis report from 2022 for its Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program for federally funded contracts. The agency also noted that there is an unenforced target of 12% that has been set by the governor’s office for state contracts going to businesses that are designated as owned by BIPOC, women, veterans, and other designated target groups.

DEI at Oregon Housing and Community Services

Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) has also worked to integrate DEI and related concepts across the agency. The agency was recently in news following an audit from the Oregon Secretary of State that found the agency could not properly verify the distribution of a substantial amount of funding in a nearly half billion dollar federal covid rental assistance program. OHCS established a prioritization schema for the program which was focused on an “equitable recovery.” This was done by establishing a prioritization index, using a tool from the Urban Institute, that would prioritize assistance on the basis of census tracts. In aiming to align with an equity approach the index was set to be weighted toward households “other than white non-Hispanic”. This was done through factor weighting in the formula, “within the Equity subindex, we weight the share of people of color higher than the other indicators”. The equity subindex was weighted at 40 percent within the overall formula.

In the area of disaster recovery planning a presentation from the agency’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer in 2020 titled Centering Equity & Racial Justice in Disaster Recovery outlines the purpose and the agency’s justification for integrating these ideas and practices into disaster recovery. The presentation specifically states that a framework that places a “disciplined laser focus” on race and ethnicity, and aspects of people’s identity is to be used for assessing outcomes. In this context that would indicate implementing policy and assessing outcomes for disaster recovery with a focus on race and identity.

OHCS’ Affordable Rental Housing Division requires those receiving funds for affordable housing development to complete a DEI agreement and submit an Equity and Racial Justice (ERJ) strategy that “creates a baseline that all projects must meet toward achieving racial equity in the projects OHCS funds.” The DEI agreement requires funding recipients to select four out of 15 DEI goal options and to “work through their DEI goals until they achieve reasonable progress.” The agency specifies that the DEI agreement is based on the Global Diversity Equity & Inclusion Benchmarks (GDEIB). The goals are thorough in requiring organizations to integrate DEI into their business operations. This can include: “Integrate DEI into marketing and customer service”, “Practice responsible and ethical sourcing. Develop and nurture underrepresented suppliers”, “Ensure that job design and classification are evaluated for bias and that compensation is equitable across key dimensions of diversity”, and more.

These requirements seem to amount to OHCS requiring private companies that receive funding for affordable housing development to structure their job design, marketing practices, sourcing and subcontracting, and other aspects of their business using the race and identity focused framework of DEI. As of the writing of this article the website for the organization that was once behind the GDEIB the Centre for Global Inclusion is no longer online. The GDEIB’s current website lists the three authors and states that the website is under construction. Information about the development of the framework and the research it is built on could not be readily found online.

Editors note: Agencies other than ODOT did not respond to inquiry.

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