Prince George’s County will start the process of developing a racial equity framework for lawmaking and policymaking. On Tuesday, the county council adopted a resolution stating their intention to analyze disparities in the county and to create a plan for how to address them.

“This is just something that will help us be better, be more just, and be more equitable,” said County Councilmember Deni Taveras, who represents District 2, in a hearing on the resolution last month.

The resolution states that analyses of equity should be part of the county’s budgeting, lawmaking, and oversight processes, and that the County Council should set targets and measures of progress for equity.

But the actual process of creating the racial equity framework will likely take more than a year.

According to the resolution adopted by the county council on Tuesday, the county’s Budget and Policy Division of the Office of Audits and Investigations will develop a “baseline report” by December 2023. That baseline report would describe existing disparities in areas like education, employment, housing, and business ownership. From there, the county will develop an “equity framework” that would become part of its process for delivering county services.

Taveras told the County Council last month that the resolution was modeled after a process that neighboring Montgomery County has undergone in recent years. In 2019, the Montgomery County Council passed a law that embeds racial equity analysis in its legislative process. Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Navarro told the Bethesda Beat that the law has helped racial equity become a “mainstay” in the county’s conversations about laws and budgeting — and helps make sure essential county services are properly directed towards communities that need them most.

The resolution adopted by the Prince George’s County Council on Tuesday celebrated the county for its diversity, but acknowledged that disparities — based on ethnicity, income,
disability, gender, sexual identity, and more — “impede our future prosperity.”

And, it said, those disparities were laid bare and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. One example of unequal access came during the rollout of vaccines in 2021.

“The availability of vaccines were sporadic at the beginning until [CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group] was able to connect to the Maryland Vaccine Equity Task Force and set up regular allotments of vaccines,” the resolution states. And, it adds, “the CASA vaccine clinic initiative was an unfunded initiative for several months.”

The racial equity resolution comes as Latino leaders in the majority-Black county have been pushing for more representation and recognition by the county’s government. They have argued that this lack of representation has concrete policy effects — and that blind spots in county government meant that during key moments in the pandemic, hard-hit Latino neighborhoods received less priority for food distribution, testing, and vaccines.

“The Covid-19 pandemic was one where my community direly suffered,” said Taveras in the hearing on the resolution last month. She represents the zip code of 20783, which includes Langley Park, a heavily Latino area where 70% of the population are not U.S. citizens or are undocumented. “We were the most affected in terms of infection rates in the DMV area, yet we were the last to receive vaccines … I think we need to be sensitive to this fact, and act responsibly.”

The framework, according to the resolution, is a way of centralizing efforts to reduce disparities in the county.

“It is time for Prince George’s County to move beyond disjointed efforts … and commit to advancing the actions necessary to intentionally develop strong equity policies and create a strategic plan,” said the resolution.

Similar frameworks are already in place in other local jurisdictions, too. Last year, D.C. opened its Office of Racial Equity, which now assesses all legislation for how it might benefit or hurt the cause of racial equity. As of June 2020, Arlington County has a chief race and equity officer who is charged with implementing a countywide action plan.