Equity Assessment
Executive Summary
The City of Bath’s 2025–2026 Equity Assessment represents the culmination of three complementary data collection efforts: the Survey Data Report, the Community Conversations, and the Discovery Analysis. Together, these sources provide a comprehensive view of how residents experience equity across eight core principles: Identity, Time, Implicit Bias, Support Systems, Transportation, Inclusivity, Monetary Equity, and Efficiency.
The final overall Equity Assessment Matrix score is 62.5 out of 104, reflecting the average across all three methods that we performed as part of this Equity Assessment Journey; Discovery Analysis, Community Conversations, and the Survey Report. This score suggests that Bath demonstrates meaningful strengths in some areas of equity practice but also faces significant gaps that must be addressed to ensure all residents feel supported, represented, and included.
This score places Bath in the moderate-to-good range, suggesting that while there is a solid foundation of equity practices, residents’ lived experiences reveal significant gaps that must be addressed.
Discovery Analysis-Internal Strengths (Score: 83.5)
The Discovery process, which reviewed policies, ordinances, and organizational documents, yielded the highest score. This indicates that Bath has strong equity commitments embedded in its written policies and internal structures. Areas such as personnel policies, safety procedures, and organizational identity reflect clear intent to support inclusion, accessibility, and fairness. On paper, Bath demonstrates a high level of equity alignment.
Community Conversations – Mixed Perceptions (Score: 56)
The facilitated conversations with residents produced a moderate score. Participants acknowledged inclusivity in cultural events, responsiveness of staff, and visible community assets. However, they also highlighted barriers in accessibility, affordability, and communication. This middle score reflects both recognition of progress and frustration with gaps in practice. It shows that while Bath’s equity commitments are visible in some areas, residents feel uneven support depending on identity, income, or lived experience.
Survey Report – Community Concerns (Score: 48)
The survey produced the lowest score, underscoring the disconnect between documented equity practices and residents’ perceptions. Respondents consistently raised concerns about affordability, rising taxes, housing pressures, infrastructure gaps, and accessibility challenges. Identity-based questions revealed polarization, with some residents praising inclusivity and others rejecting DEI language as divisive. The survey results highlight the lived reality of residents: equity efforts are not consistently felt or understood, and communication gaps undermine trust.
The overall score of 62.5 represents the tension between intent and perception. Internally, Bath has strong equity frameworks and policies (Discovery), but externally, residents’ experiences (Survey and Conversations) reveal barriers that limit access, belonging, and trust. The discrepancy between the high Discovery score and the lower community-facing scores signals that equity practices are not yet fully translating into lived experience for all residents.
What we realized through this process is:
- Strengths exist in documentation and policy, providing a strong foundation for equity work.
- Residents’ lived experiences are less positive, especially around affordability, accessibility, and communication.
- Trust gaps must be addressed by making equity efforts visible, transparent, and practical.
- The 62.5 score is a call to action: Bath is on the right path but must bridge the gap betweenpolicy and practice to ensure equity is felt across all identities and communities.
Read the Full Document(PDF, 12MB)