Will County Board Diversity & Inclusion Committee met July 14.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Ms. Freeman led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Margaret Tyson called the meeting to order at 10:02 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Margaret Tyson | Chair | Present | |
| Denise E. Winfrey | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Julie Berkowicz | Member | Present | |
| Gretchen Fritz | Member | Present | |
| Kenneth E. Harris | Member | Present | |
| Raquel M. Mitchell | Member | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | Member | Present |
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: A. Lipetz.
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Diversity & Inclusion Committee - Regular Meeting - May 5, 2021 11:00 AM Ms. Berkowicz asked Madam Chair may I ask a question regarding the minutes. I read the minutes and there was one thing I thought we had a conversation on; regarding placing some parameters on the length of time for a contract, and a dollar amount. Mr. Palmer indicated that we have the ability to do that. I don’t see any of that in the minutes; at least the discussion. I haven’t had time to listen to the recording; does anyone recall whether or not we did that? I’m fairly certain that we did have a discussion about that.
Ms. Tyson said I am going to have Mr. Palmer speak on that.
Mr. Palmer stated Ms. Berkowicz; in the minutes it looks like it is on page 3; the discussion you were referring to is there; but there was no firm direction given by the Board. Just to remind everybody; the Executive’s Office is in the process of negotiating a contract. I believe they met on Monday with the consultant team. They’re just initiating that first conversation. If the Board wanted to give direction; as I said last month; now is the time to give it. They are going to hopefully come in August with a proposed contract; that is my understanding.
Ms. Berkowicz stated Mr. Palmer thank you for that. I think that is part of the problem; the difficultly of having remote meetings; it is hard to navigate all of this when we are in separate places. I did bring it up; that was something that I felt was important. I would like to make sure that today we have that conversation; and that we do set those parameters. That was my only comment about this. Thank you.
Ms. Tyson stated Ms. Berkowicz today what we are going to do is have Carmona Strategic Solutions do a presentation. We are not going to vote on resolutions; or anything like that. So we are not going to talk about parameters today.
Ms. Berkowicz said is there a certain place in the meeting where we can discuss this. What I am hearing is that the County Executive will set those parameters; she will negotiate that. I thought that we had the ability to do that; could you comment on that?
Mr. Palmer said I don’t want to contradict anything anybody is saying; but I think it’s appropriate; unless the State’s Attorney tells me it is not. I think it is appropriate to voice opinions today; maybe after the presentation would be better. Ultimately the directions or suggestions that the Board gives the Executive; can be included in the recommendation; or they can tell us why they think it should be something else. The suggestions can be made and the Executive’s Office will bring forward a contract. If you don’t like the contract as it is written; you can propose changes next month. I think it is okay to give the suggestion today; so that helps guide the negotiations and gives a heads up to the Executive’s Office what you are willing to support as a Board or not. I would recommend maybe lets have the presentation and then questions and maybe talk about what the Board thinks.
Ms. Berkowicz replied thank you Mr. Palmer.
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Denise E. Winfrey, Vice Chair SECONDER: Sherry Newquist, Member AYES: Tyson, Winfrey, Berkowicz, Fritz, Harris, Mitchell, Newquist |
Ms. Tyson stated the presentation is by recommended Diversity & Inclusion Consultant Carmona Strategic Solutions. They are going to do a presentation for us today. They are in the building today so that is a wonderful thing; we get to see them live and in person. You may begin Mr. Carmona.
Mr. Carmona said hello; thank you so much. This is part of the transition into the normalcy hopefully. I want to say on behalf of my team we are honored to be here; and to do this presentation. First of all I just want to say the intent of any work that we do is to focus on strengthening Will County; and also strengthening the State of Illinois in terms of competitively, economically, as a state for jobs, and just the brand of Will County. That was the intent of how we responded; there are certain experiences we shared about things that we’ve done at the state level to support that. I am going to make sure that we make those points clear; that’s our intent. We look forward to partnering and working with Will County Government and the Commissioners. Again thank you for the opportunity. My firm is called Carmona Strategic Solutions; I will introduce my team in a minute; I’m the President and CEO and the overview of our presentation is very simple. This is the one that we did for the selection committee to support our proposal.
At this juncture Mr. Carmona presented the Carmona Strategic Solutions; PowerPoint presentation; there was a brief question and answer period that followed.
Ms. Tyson said thank you Mr. Carmona; are there any questions from Board Members.
Ms. Fritz stated I would just like to point out; and I don’t think I am incorrect about this. The job that we are asking you to do; is just to look at our hiring and our employment. Not the businesses within the county; I don’t think that is our charter. I just want to make sure that is clear in the contract, when the contract is written, and before it is sent. We’re just talking about ourselves; we are just talking about county government. We are not talking about county businesses.
Mr. Carmona said I would say so; again I will wait for the final contract and conversations. But there are lessons that can be learned in terms of recruitment platforms; even software for identifying. In other words the big businesses that already have diversity and inclusion. I am going to leverage them and if they have recruiting practices that may help; I will leverage that.
Ms. Tyson asked Ms. Fritz if that answer was sufficient.
Mr. Fritz replied; it really wasn’t a question; it was more of a statement. Thank you.
Ms. Berkowicz stated the presentation the way I heard it; is a proposal for a wide scope of work. Their pipeline strategy of reaching out; including the health care industries; the pipeline strategy to grow jobs and evaluate Will County companies and employers. That is beyond the scope that Will County should really be taking. We have to remember that we are stewards of our tax payer dollars. They describe work as similarly done by existing nonprofits; for example, even the CED which we support. I don’t think the private businesses in Will County wants the County to approach them and give them employee mandates or guidelines on their hiring. I am requesting that this committee has a discussion; and an agreement in this meeting on the scope of this project. I can’t really vote on this; unless I am comfortable with that. That is one thing that I would like to do; I would like a clear understanding to come from an open discussion. What is the scope of this project; then that way the County Executive will understand what we expect. I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Carmona. Thank you so much for your presentation; I appreciate it. You have mentioned in the proposal that you would be doing research; reaching out to the companies that you identified in your Will County pipeline. Haven’t you done a lot of this research already; with your existing Will County clients?
Mr. Carmona replied the research that I have done was basically to understand the company; I don’t have any Will County clients. In order for me to understand the community you have to understand who the main employers are. Any value that is out there I am going to take the guidance from the Board; and from the Executive; to identify if we have those practices here that we can leverage.
Ms. Berkowicz said thank you; so you don’t have any existing Will County clients; and the purpose of doing that would be to compare what they have to our hiring practices at the County. Because again; I was under the assumption that we were looking at Will County Government; whether or not we were diverse; and not necessarily going out to these companies and evaluating them.
Mr. Carmona said there will be no evaluation of that; that’s not in the scope that I understand it to be. My issue for example; if we do any comparisons; let me just give you a brief conversation of comparisons. I have a person that I hired over the summer doing data analysis. We look at education levels from other counties. We look at economic development situations, jobs, and all of these things from other counties. Just to give an indication of hey there is another county not in Illinois; but somewhere else. That may be doing something effectively; in terms of graduating a certain generation. That their school system is aligned and adds to the value to the County. So whatever adds value to the County is going to be my focus.
Ms. Berkowicz said I think that’s the important point. I don’t believe that this project should be regarding the entire county. It should be applicable to our Will County Government and its scope. Not to our businesses, and not to our residents. Madam Chairwoman Tyson I really would like to have that determined today; in this meeting. So we have a clear understanding; what is the scope we are supporting. Then that way our County Executive will understand how the committee feels. Then the second question that I have; Mr. Carmona your proposal indicates a year one; Then a year two; I was wondering how you determined that length of time.
Mr. Carmona replied a lot of the work that I do is to be able to create the measures of two quarters; there are four quarters in a year. If we can have some time within the rest of 2021 to identify some of the key metrics in the different areas within Will County Government; to see where there are areas we could work on in terms of human resources, procurement, and even community outreach. I think it would take that long because of the size of your County and all of the different things that are there. In other words there are skill sets that we have; we have experiences; but we have to develop the collaborations. You will be getting reports from us; in however you want them; monthly, or quarterly in terms of the data. We will be going through Will County the Diversity Committee and we will be able to see the value. Again, I don’t have the answers on day one; and based on the work that I have done in other situations. With the CED we came in; they were looking at how long it is going to take; I would say maybe three or four quarters. That is what I am proposing; because business from that prospective; we understand quarter and we understand performance. When you are looking at new initiatives we are trying to put structure to this. That was the best way I thought we could put structure to that within a two year assessment. The first year; based on my background is to look and understand all of the key entities, all the key players, the identity of the client, and then also look for opportunities. I was projecting two years; first year to understand; second year is make it sustainable.
Ms. Berkowicz asked if you could give the committee an idea of what the cost would be for the first year; and then the second year.
Ms. Tyson state excuse me Ms. Berkowicz todays presentation by Carmona Strategic Solutions is to give us a presentation. The Executive’s Office is going to negotiate the contract; and present it to us next month. We are not talking dollars today; we are not talking timelines today. Today the presentation is an in person presentation; no voting will be had today.
Ms. Berkowicz replied I believe that Mr. Palmer said that we could have that conversation today; and I believe we should.
Ms. Tyson said we can have a conversation; but we are not going to vote today.
Ms. Winfrey stated we may vote on a particular item; but we are not going to negotiate the contract in an open meeting. That is the responsibility of the County Executive. What we can get an understanding of is exactly how this is going to operate for us. It may be helpful for the people to understand that what we are looking at is the entire county; not just county government. What we are looking at not only our inward interactions but our outward interactions. Which means how we interact with our community around us which includes our companies, neighborhood organizations, social service agencies, all of that. That is all a part of the picture. If you think of us as outward facing; there are more things than just people who work for the County that are a part of it. That will be a part of their scope; is looking at all those factors. That is not necessarily telling those people how they should operate; but understanding how their operation impacts how we operate as a County. Looking at ways that we as a County; not just county government can improve how we interface with residents, how we project our image, how we do the things that we say we want to be as a County. How we do better.
Speaker Cowan said thank you Mr. Carmona for your presentation. I need to address some of these questions. I heard you say at one point your primary focus was county government procurement; county government human recourses, and I think there was a third thing on that list as well. Could you talk more about those things in particular; and the process for evaluating those categories; and what that might lead us to as county government.
Mr. Carmona stated the third was looking at community outreach. So with the procurement processes this is similar to what we were looking at with the CED; and other experiences. When I ask organizations how are you doing; and they give me an answer; and they say yes; and I say how do you know? With procurement and job creation that Will County has the power to do; it would be good to look at the data; and also go through the software that they are using. Then from there in the procurement. So what is your relationship with the various Chambers of Commerce; what is your relationship with the business incubators; what are your numbers that are coming out. This is why we also look if there is a reliance on any particular funded program. From community college to reach out to small businesses; the SBDC (Small Businesses Development Centers). For example if Will County has a grant of monies for that; how is the Winnebago County coming along; what is Peoria County doing; in all of those areas you start understanding they have relationships and ways. They do talk amongst each other to find what the best way to reach an employer trying to look for an opportunity. Let’s look at the data; understand the data first; and what it is telling us. What we learned at the Capital Development Board; was to allow these minority women and Veteran owned businesses; they were doing a lot of the work that could have been done at the CED but not knowing the paperwork needed for certification to get prequalified. This is where the outreach comes in; okay I didn’t know I could apply for that particular opportunity to do carpentry or to do dry walling. Sometimes we say we didn’t know anybody or we didn’t trust somebody; it is the community organizations, the schools, the educators, and that is how we build procurement. Because the employment assets are here and other potential ones. I will give you another example; but sometimes we are competing not only within the formal economy, but the informal economy. The more that you can document what you are doing as a business; maybe gets you qualified with the State of Illinois as a minority woman or veteran owned business; that positions you better. But we don’t know that in terms of understanding of how many minority women and veteran owned businesses that we have; and how many do we potentially have in Will County. What would be the challenges; even trying to get certified by the State of Illinois; or by Tollway or IDOT. You have a lot of transportation here. Then that gets into the recruitment side of employment at different levels. The Executive levels; you want into that room and how diverse is that room and the leadership. You look at that and they want to address that then cool. Then you look at what other professionals that are out there that could possibly fill those positions at every level. The midlevel, the frontline level, what’s the career pathway in HR. How do we keep that institutional memory so Will County becomes like your school systems and these other employees; some of the best places bred some of the best talent? That is the HR scope; and then you have to leverage the community, understand that. The community means a lot of different things; you have homeowners; you have people who send their children to school; so they are impacted on the quality of Will County. Those are the three pillars that we are looking at in terms of making sure I can scope it; as I was talking about why diversity and inclusion programs sometimes fail. Because they don’t meet with somebody; go meet, go meet, go meet. I am responsible to the Will County Board to make sure that I’m giving them some actual numbers and data that not only show what’s there; but uncovers from new potential discoveries. Or when you are trying to recruit executives or even businesses; what’s the brand of Will County projecting out there? You want to bring in some good executives sometimes; when I’ve done executive search; what’s the school system like. They look at all that data; in other words it is the coming together to bring the best people; but also to keep the best people in Will County. That is going to require the understanding of human resources, and the procurement for the whole county, and even county government.
Speaker Cowan said so really what you are saying; you’re going to look at the data behind the data and procurement and HR processes in particular. Theoretically there is a chance you look at that data and say; hey you guys are doing a great job with diversity and inclusion. If the data shows that we are reaching every; everyone has an equitable opportunity; they feel welcome; they feel valued; and everything is good; that’s one possibility. You might look at the data and say here are some areas where we could enhance structures and programs in county government to make sure we can reach a higher standard in our procurement process in county government; is that a fair assessment?
Mr. Carmona said yes; because you have different advocacy groups; let’s say with what we learned with the CED; they are doing some great stuff with outreach. But then you have some questions that have been asked; by entities impacted by them. You have the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, you have all of these entities that also have their own questions. Because once the numbers come out; the numbers can speak. So the data is going to be very important for us to understand and say okay how we are collecting that data is also important. You also have to have advocates like the Diversity & Inclusion Committee to start looking for data and information to get to know our communities better. Our intent is; I would equate it to maybe we are looking at selling our house. What do you do when you sell a house; you look at the pipes. You have to look at areas that you have never had so you can improve upon.
Ms. Newquist stated some of my questions have been answered; are you saying that yes we are not looking to impose diversity practices on businesses within Will County etc. We are focused on county government. We are not just looking at our county government internally; we are also looking at how we are providing services; are we reaching the right people. More than just our hiring of procurement practices. Is this what I hear you proposing?
Mr. Carmona stated yes to a certain extent. Our firm is going to be guided by you all. In other words if we start uncovering things; not just the quantity of the data but the quality data when you start having people saying this is why I didn’t apply to this particular agency; because it is always the same old same old. That may be true or not true. But the source is going to be not only talking to those who are currently in the government itself; but who also may require a survey and say okay I have never applied for an opportunity here; and what kind of experience did you have? In the same way with businesses too; have you ever tried to seek an opportunity from Will County to maybe do landscaping; or to do some type of job; and you start looking at this data. What will happen is the more information we can get in and uncover it will go to you the Elected Officials; and the Executive to say wow; I didn’t know that, is this an opportunity to say for us to explore. A lot of programs get created and are worth investing in; summer programs, leadership programs, development programs. They get funded by a county or a government; come from data, and from information. If there is unexplored data and talent that is out there; or we may confirm that we have a lot of good stuff out here. It is important to know your numbers and to know what people are thinking at every possible aspect to make it a more effective government; and responsible.
Ms. Freeman said I am currently taking the Professional Development Leadership Course. We have learned in this course; and I know that a lot of members of the Board have taken it as well. If it’s important it is worth studying; and what gets measured gets done. We have to know our industry; we have to know what works; and what doesn’t. We also have to know that we are not unique; and there are patterns in solutions that we can apply to ourselves. I appreciate the fact that you are focusing on the data; because data is where information lies. I just wanted to say thank you for that.
Ms. Mitchell said I just wanted to say that I agree with Ms. Fritz and Ms. Berkowicz; I would also like to assert that I would like the scope to clearly be just for the government and not for anything else. I think that all of the statements that were made about what we should be doing as a governing body; I agree with all of them. Let’s keep it that we become a better governing body; and keep it so we do the services that we were elected to do. In so doing I would like to keep the scope strictly for our entity. Thank you so much.
Ms. Mueller said like my friend Ms. Freeman suggested; some of us have gone through this educational program. I really like a measurable plan; so that we know that we are moving in the right direction. I wanted to ask the consultant how frequently they would be presenting to us. In where they are at with their data collection; and procurement and things like that.
In the end will we have a good measurable plan for how we can move forward in our county life here as it has been stated by the other Board members; to serve our community and staff better (inaudible) will we have a plan like that in the end? It’s all nice and able for folks to read over and see what we’ve done to get here.
Mr. Carmona said that would be the intent; I can only go based on experience; again this is some of the things that we integrated to some of our government clients. We collect data daily; from there we have our internal; this is just internal. Weekly we look at what we are seeing in terms of technical assistance, outreaches, any documentation, surveys, monthly reports come out, and then also quarterly. What also happens is our client; in this case the
State of Illinois with the Capital Development Board. Sometimes we get a request from the Governor and we generate. We house the data; and we have it; and it is our responsibility to respond as soon as we can. We’ll store it and then get it to you. Ideally right now we are working on making sure we are collecting daily, weekly, and when report is there; monthly is kind of like we consistently want to give. If something happens with some type of opportunity for Will County to go after some type of grant; or some type of other types of job. We want the opportunity to help you out also.
Ms. Tyson stated Mr. Carmona are there any last things that you would like to share.
Mr. Carmona stated no, it is just an honor and I appreciate the questions; again that helps me to understand what is important to you all. That my intent and my team’s intent; to add value with our work and make sure this engagement is successful.
Ms. Tyson said thank you and we appreciate your time. It was a very wonderful presentation; and I enjoyed it immensely.
Ms. Winfrey stated there were several questions about the scope of the contract. Just so that people understand; the scope is to work on us. Getting the information from who we interface with is how they will do the work on us as a County; not just the government piece; but on the County overall. Understanding how we interact, what we do, who we impact, and how we impact them. Who we include or don’t include is what is going to give them the data. The information about how we can change or not change depending. Just so you are clear on that; we are not looking to do anything with other businesses; other than get data from them about how we have interfaced with them; or what they’ve done in our area; that may be helpful for us to know. Same thing with community organizations, social service groups, all of those have data to share with us about we interact; what our interface has been with them. Things that we may not even be aware of; in terms of what our practices and policies are that affect them and affect the residents. Things that we don’t understand or know about because we don’t have the data and have not collected it. They will get all of that together for us; share that with us; and show us ways we can improve the way that we operate in the County; the way that we interact with our residents. The way we make opportunities for residents; the way people get included in whether it is purchasing or its social events. Whether it is contractors; you know we have heard from our contractors about how they are feeling. All of that data will come into the County; we will have a chance to look at that on an ongoing basis. As Mr. Carmona has said we will get monthly reports; we’ll have a guideline to follow; to continue even after they are no longer with us. About how we can continue to improve our processes; improve the way we interact with residents with businesses in the community. That will be our guidebook that will be the final outcome of the work with us. Along the way they will be more or less coaching us to look at opportunities we are maybe missing right now that we can use to interact better with the people in our community.
1. Presentation by Recommended Diversity & Inclusion Consultant Carmona Strategic Solutions (Presentation)
Handout from Carmona Strategic Solutions at Committee (Handout)
VII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
VIII. PUBLIC COMMENT
IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
X. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XI. ADJOURNMENT
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