South Bend Tribune
The city of South Bend announced plans for addressing contracting disparities for minority- and women-owned businesses.
Community activists and black entrepreneurs expressed optimism at the news, but you couldn’t blame them or anyone else for taking a wait-and-see approach.
After all, this is hardly a new issue, or one that city officials were unaware of. For decades, there’s been a widely held perception among minorities that they haven’t received a fair shot at bidding on city contracts.
The results of a “disparity study” — presented at a public meeting on Thursday — confirmed and quantified the problem.
The study, conducted by consultant Colette Holt’s California-based firm, found that minority- and women-owned businesses get a disproportionately small share of jobs. Of more than $100 million in contracts awarded by the city between 2015 and 2017, businesses owned by minorities and women accounted for 12% of the companies that won the contracts. That’s despite the fact that those businesses made up almost 15% of the contractors that were available in the city’s market area to do the types of work awarded by the city over that time frame.
According to the study, the evidence of a discriminatory contracting process in South Bend’s market area is strong enough that city policies meant to make the process fairer would likely stand up to court challenges. After passage of an ordinance by the city’s Common Council, the city plans to use the study’s results to justify setting minimum goals for contracting and procurement from women- and minority-owned businesses.
Community activist Joseph Shabazz, a persistent advocate on this issue for years, said the city’s new initiative will be “a good thing” if it’s fully implemented. Shabazz received an award named for Eugenia Braboy, a former Common Council member who pushed for a 1987 affirmative action ordinance calling for tracking city contracting with minority- and women-owned firms.
But Shabazz said city officials had told him for years that they weren’t following the ordinance because it was unenforceable. He said the process that led to the city’s plan was a long one, “frustrating at times, but there wasn’t nobody else doing it, so I did it.”
Now it’s time for the city to do its part. The plan outlined is a good step. But for far too long, officials have accepted the status quo — instead of taking the action needed to fix this inequity.
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