Location: San Francisco, CA   
Date of Final Report: November, 2008

Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority (BART) Transmittal Letter

November 19, 2008

Ms. Dorothy W. Dugger
General Manager
San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District
300 Lakeside Drive
P.O. Box 12688
Oakland, CA 94604-2688

Dear Ms. Dugger:

Thank you for your response to the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) letter and preliminary report of findings of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Compliance Review of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) conducted from January 23-25, 2008. Enclosed is the final report that incorporates BART’s official response, dated September 29, 2008. As of the date of this letter, the final report became a public document and is subject to dissemination under the Freedom of Information Act of 1974.

Please use the summary table in Section VII of the final report as the format to report progress to FTA on the corrective actions BART intends to implement as a result of our findings. Please identify each response by item number. The requested documentation, along with updates on the status of implementation of proposed corrective actions, should be provided in quarterly reports to FTA. Each report should include the planned and actual completion date of the corrective action; the current status and contact person information for each corrective action, and specific reporting requests cited in this letter and on the enclosed table. The first report will be due on January 31, 2009, and should include activity during the months of October through December 2008, and any actions completed prior to that date that have not already been addressed. Additional reports will be due on April 30, 2009; July 31, 2009; and each calendar quarter thereafter until FTA releases BART from this reporting requirement.

We are pleased with the progress you have made in responding to the findings of the review as presented in your September 29, 2008, response to the draft report. It appears that BART has taken positive steps to improve its EEO program by correcting the deficiencies in the areas of Statement of Policy, Designation of Personnel Responsibility, and Monitoring and Reporting. Deficiencies remain in two areas, Dissemination and Assessment of Employment Practices. The report and your response provide a detailed description of the corrective actions already taken by BART. 

Once we have reviewed your progress reports, we will either request clarification or additional corrective action or will close out the finding if your response sufficiently addresses the FTA EEO Circular’s requirement.

The following section summarizes the outstanding deficiencies in the EEO Compliance review and BART’s response (a full description of the findings are contained in the report and BART’s unabridged response is included as attachment A).

Remaining Compliance Deficiencies: BART EEO Review

Dissemination

Requirement: Formal communication mechanisms should be established to publicize and disseminate the agency’s EEO policy as well as appropriate elements of the program, to its employees, applicants and the general public.

Finding: During this Compliance Review of BART, deficiencies were found with FTA requirements for Dissemination. The Review team examined documentation which showed that, except for the Policy’s dissemination in BART’s new hire orientation package and at State-mandated compulsory supervisory sexual harassment training (AB 1825), there was very limited other internal dissemination of the EEO Policy.

Corrective Action Proposed by BART: To address this deficiency, BART has or is in the process of implementing the following actions:

Internal Distribution

• EEO Policy Statement posting on the WebBART internal website
• Annual letter to all employees from BART’s General Manager reaffirming BART’s commitment to EEO, which includes a copy of the EEO Policy Statement
• EEO Training for all employees that includes a review of BART’s EEO policies and other relevant issues and procedures. Recent EEO training sessions have included:
  1) Valuing Diversity Training for all employees
  2) Making Smart Employment Decisions
  3) Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
  4) AB1825 Preventing Sexual Harassment Training for managers and supervisors
• EEO Complaint Procedure posting on the WebBART internal website
• Annual meetings with BART Executive Managers to discuss EEO goal achievement, EEO complaint activity and good faith hiring efforts
• Development of EEO Performance Standards to assist hiring managers’ good faith efforts in EEO Program achievement

External Distribution

• EEO Policy posting on BART’s external website, www.bart.gov
• EEO Policy statement included in BART Employment Applications, Purchase Orders, Leases and Contracts
• Identification of local minority and female organizations and community organizations as resources for distribution of EEO Policy Statement to increase recruitment of qualified women and minorities.

FTA accepts BART’s proposed corrective action to this finding. FTA also recommendsposting official EEO posters and the policy statement on bulletin boards, near time clocks, employees’ cafeteria and snack bars, and in the employment/personnel office.In your first quarterly progress report, please provide documentation of the dissemination activities that have occurred. As of BART’s September 29, 2008 response to the draft report, the only completed dissemination activity was the posting of BART’s EEO Policy and Complaint Procedures on its external website.

Assessment of Employment Practices
Requirement: Recipients, subrecipients, contractors and subcontractors must conduct a detailed assessment of present employment practices to identify those practices that operate as employment barriers and unjustifiably contribute to underutilization.

Finding: During this Compliance Review of BART, deficiencies were found with FTA requirements for Assessment of Employment Practices. BART did not document that it had conducted qualitative or quantitative assessments of employment practices.

The most significant challenge to accomplishing this effort was that the written HR employment policies did not reflect current practices. Most of the HR policies provided to the Review team were over ten years old and not assembled in a manner that described the full HR process. As a result, OCR could not review the policies to determine if there were barriers, and employees were unable to determine if they were being treated fairly.

Corrective Action Proposed by BART: The BART Human Resources Department is currently revising its employment policies and procedures. …Chapters of this document are currently in circulation in draft, and the Office of Civil Rights has been invited to review the procedures before they are finalized… Once the new procedures are in place, OCR will begin routine analysis and review of the results. 

FTA accepts BART’s response to this finding. In your first quarterly progress report, please provide an update on the completion of the revised Human Resources policies and procedures. Continue to report quarterly until the Policies are finalized and OCT has conducted a qualitative and quantitative assessment of employment practices, as described in FTA Circular 4704.1

We recognize the efforts BART will make to correct the deficiencies identified in the report, and we anticipate its continued endeavors to take further corrective actions as noted in this letter. Please respond to the findings of this review in a progress report addressed to the following:

Derrin Jourdan
FTA Region IX Civil Rights Officer
201 Mission Street
Suite1650
San Francisco, CA 94105-1839

Anita Heard
Program Analyst
FTA Office of Civil Rights
400 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20590

We appreciate the cooperation and assistance that you and your staff have provided us during this review. If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Ms. Anita Heard, Office of Civil Rights at (202) 493-0318 or at her email address, Anita.Heard@dot.gov.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Hershey
Director, Office of Civil Rights

cc: Leslie T. Rogers, FTA Region IX Administrator
Derrin Jourdan, FTA Region IX Civil Rights Officer
Nadeem S. Tahir, FTA Region IX Director of Program Management & Oversight