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Things of concern, more information needed
City Council Agenda: Consent G. Resolution authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with NEOGOV to implement a comprehensive Human Resources System. (Staff Report)
This is a $1.3 MIL contract with a company called NEOGOV to implement a new comprehensive Human Resources (HR) system to replace the existing Munis HR system.
There is no mention in the staff report of outreach to Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE), which is typically part of the City’s procedure for securing contracts. That process is overseen by the Asheville Business Inclusion (ABI) office, which does not have a permanent staff at present and has not had any consistent leadership since the departure of Manager Rosanna Mulcahy over a year ago. When Mulcahy left, she echoed many of the concerns raised by former Director of Equity and Inclusion Kimberle Archie about equity issues not receiving the depth of support needed and promised by our City government. (You can read Ms. Mulcahy’s comments from 2022 here, and Ms. Archie’s from 2020 here.) We recently found out that the ABI doesn’t have any available data on how successful it has been in attracting MWBEs to successfully bid on City contracts. We’d like to hear from Asheville City Manager Debra Campbell on when she hopes to post and fill the ABI Manager position, so that these issues can be addressed.
Things to do
We encourage you to reach out to the Asheville City Manager and City Council and ask when they will move forward with rebuilding the Asheville Business Inclusion office.
We have prepared an email template that addresses this issue. You can (a) use our City Manager template link to open up an email to adapt, (b) copy and paste the content below, or (c) write your own message to dcampbell@ashevillenc.gov and AshevilleNCCouncil@ashevillenc.gov.
EMAIL TEMPLATE TEXT
You can open this email in your own email program by clicking here. To proceed manually, you can copy and paste the text below into an email and then address it to the City Manager and City Council (email addresses below).
Send to: dcampbell@ashevillenc.gov, AshevilleNCCouncil@ashevillenc.gov
Subject: Supporting the Business Inclusion Office
Dear City Manger Campbell and City Council Members,
I’m concerned that the Asheville Business Inclusion Office has been without a manager for some time now, and that this is undermining the important work they do to boost racial equity in City contracted work. What is the plan for posting and filling this position?
Thanks for your leadership,