a. There shall be established within the executive office of the mayor an office of racial equity, the head of which shall be the city's chief equity officer.
b. The chief equity officer shall be appointed by the mayor as head of a mayoral agency for purposes of chapter 16. The chief equity officer may hold a deputy mayor position. The chief equity officer may appoint deputies, assistants, and additional employees as may be needed for the performance of the duties prescribed herein, within available appropriations.
c. The appropriations available to pay for the expenses of the office of racial equity during each fiscal year shall be not less than an amount sufficient to fund personal service costs for full-time and part-time personnel necessary to implement the charter mandated requirements of the office, as certified by the mayor in the budget message submitted pursuant to section 250.
d. Powers and duties. The office of racial equity shall have the power and duty to:
1. Develop, provide oversight of, assess, and advance measures to improve and achieve racial equity in the city of New York.
2. Coordinate citywide and agency racial equity planning, as described in section 3403, including:
(a) establishing standards for, and overseeing the development, publication, and public dissemination of racial equity strategies, indicators, and progress reports;
(b) establishing standards for disaggregation of data, across categories that shall include, without limitation, race and gender, and may also include other standard categories of disaggregation, including ethnicity, income, neighborhood, and socio-economic status, or other characteristics, at levels of granularity matching or exceeding generally accepted levels of disaggregation, and sufficient to permit identification of disparity among or within groups, and accounting for an agency's function, to be utilized in citywide and agency racial equity planning; and
(c) collaborating with the chief privacy officer to develop privacy standards that enable collection and use of disaggregated data while safeguarding individual and community privacy.
3. Include within the office, and, provide technical and staffing support to, the taskforce on racial inclusion and equity, as established in section 3402.
4. Provide technical assistance to, and collaborate with, agencies to support their capacity to engage in meaningful racial equity analysis, and support, confer with, and advise covered agencies as they draft equity plans.
5. Identify priority neighborhoods, differentiated by categories of needs or disparities, and review the categorization of neighborhoods every two years to adjust for changing equity, health, or socio-economic trends and needs.
6. Complete preliminary and final racial equity progress reports, in accordance with the racial equity planning schedule as described in paragraphs 6 and 7 of subdivision d of section 3403, to provide periodic updates on the status of the city and covered agencies' progress towards equity goals as set forth in the citywide racial equity plan.
7. Develop a citywide access design program to increase equitable access and reduce barriers to in-person and digital city programs and services, including, but not limited to, incorporating civic service design, plain language, language justice, and disability-related access into every agency's work. The office shall collaborate with city agencies to establish user-centric technology and to integrate access design into the ways agencies interact with the public, including in their programs and in their community outreach. The office may collaborate on agencies' existing city efforts to increase access.
8. Support all agencies in prioritizing the development and implementation of policies and practices aimed at anti-marginalization of individuals and communities, which may address: (i) reducing or eliminating wage or occupational segregation; (ii) improving equitable hiring and promotion within the City's workforce; (iii) limiting the use of criminal history and background checks except where necessity is demonstrated; (iv) identifying and employing alternatives to punitive enforcement; (v) providing access to services, information, and decisionmaking for all New Yorkers regardless of language, ability, education, time availability, or expertise; and (vi) prioritizing resources and services into neighborhoods with the greatest need and largest disparity.
9. To the extent a new measurement for the cost of living in New York city is required to be reported under this charter or by local law, develop, implement and report such measurement. Such measurement may be consolidated with any other report or plan due under this chapter.
(L.L. 2022/121, 12/2/2022, eff. 12/2/2022)