Controversial hire to lead Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative resigns
The newly named leader of the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative, who faced significant scrutiny over her work as a top-level official in Ohio, has resigned.
Kimberly Henderson’s resignation was announced Monday by the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, which hired her Feb. 3 to lead the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative, a $250 million public-private partnership to address systemic racism in Charlotte.
Details of Henderson’s tenure in Ohio sparked controversy locally just one day after her hiring announcement.
Henderson said in a letter dated Sunday that stepping down “is in the best interest of the continued success of the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative.”
“I believe that the work of the Initiative is too critical to be jeopardized in any way by public misperceptions related to my prior leadership as a Cabinet Director in Ohio and appointment as Executive Director,” she said.
The concerns centered on her time as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which paid out millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims and billions more of overpayments during the pandemic.
She resigned from the Ohio post in March 2021. Later that year she moved to Charlotte with her husband, according to her hiring announcement.
Henderson, who has not responded to requests for comment from the Observer, said in her resignation letter she is “not the subject of any criminal investigation,” and was proud of improvements to the unemployment system after “foreign and domestic criminals used the pandemic as an opportunity to defraud unemployment benefits systems across the nation at an unprecedented scale.”
But Ohio’s attorney general in May 2021 asked two law enforcement agencies to investigate if any laws were broken by Henderson or other staff. That was prompted after the Ohio auditor’s office reported receiving conflicting information about the department’s knowledge of and disclosure of the scale of the problem, according to documents provided to the Observer.
Attempts to determine the outcome of that request to investigate have been unsuccessful.
A subsequent Ohio audit would find $475 million of fraudulent claims were paid out, as well as $3.3 billion in overpayments.
Despite having her title in the name of the program, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles has distanced herself repeatedly from Henderson’s hire, saying the decision was the Alliance’s alone and she and the City Council had no input in it.
Equity push
The equity initiative was announced in November with a flurry of multi-million-dollar donations toward four key areas: Johnson C. Smith University, closing digital access gaps, increasing diverse hiring and promotion by Charlotte’s employers and the city’s Corridors of Opportunity to revitalize areas long overlooked by development.
If the $250 million goal is reached, it will include $100 million of public funds and $150 million in corporate and philanthropic giving. When the effort was announced, $196 million had been committed.
CRBA President and CEO Janet LaBar was not made available for an interview Monday, but previously defended Henderson’s hiring, saying the audit and investigation in Ohio were factored into the decision.
LaBar “has taken responsibility for the recent staffing decision,” according to a statement released Monday that she signed along with Initiative co-chairs Malcomb Coley and Michael Lamach.
“We all regret the negative attention this process has brought to the Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative and to Mayor Lyles. We are deeply sorry for the distraction this has caused to work that is critically important to our community,” the statement read. “We are committed to more conversation, better process, and involvement with the Mayor and the broader community moving forward.”
The Initiative will start a search for a new leader, according to the announcement.
“This Initiative and its leadership will learn as we move forward, and we commit to doing better,” the statement concluded. “Every member of our community deserves our best work, and we expect you to hold us accountable.”
Concerns over Henderson’s hire were just the latest transparency issue surrounding the mayor’s initiative. Several members of Charlotte’s City Council — most vocally Tariq Bokhari — said they weren’t informed that COVID-19 relief funds they approved earlier would be directed toward the initiative.
And some local advocates have criticized the effort from the beginning, saying it was planned behind closed doors without community input.
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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