 
|
|||||||||||||
              
|
City to scrap rules on awarding contracts, setting minority participation goals Study spurs proposal to aid small businesses Saturday, July 29, 2000 By Timothy McNulty, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The release of a four-year study of government contracting to minority- and women-owned businesses will spur the city to junk old regulations on awarding contracts and replace them with ones that help all small businesses, the Murphy administration's top lawyer said yesterday.
But it will be a long and complicated process.
Eventually, the findings of the "Disparity Study on Contracting and Procurement," released, in part, on Thursday, will hasten the end of city goals to award 25 percent of contracts to minority-owned businesses and 10 percent to women-owned businesses. The goals date to the late '70s.
"We'll be tearing them down. They're gone. They are no longer justified," said city Solicitor Jacqueline Morrow.
Following U.S. Supreme Court guidelines on affirmative action policies, she said, new rules will be implemented that are neutral in regard to race and gender.
Since many minority- and women-owned firms are small, they could still benefit from the new rules.
If those remedies don't work and the firms continue to be passed over for government work, Morrow said, new contracting goals can be adopted.
The goals wouldn't be rigid, like the current 25 percent and 10 percent standards. Instead, they would be tied to the percentages of minority and female businesses available to perform certain work.
For example, the study found blacks own 15 percent of the city's prime contracting firms. The goal for prime contracting would be set at 15 percent for black-owned firms.,
The new regulations will also incorporate a series of other recommendations by the Oakland-based consulting firm, Mason Tillman Associates, which wrote the study.
The disparity study is a $450,000 report commissioned by City Council in 1995. It was conducted to comply with a 1989 court ruling that race-and gender-based set asides for public contracts could be legal only if government studies disclosed evidence of discrimination against capable firms.
In studies of contracting by city government and five agencies from 1996 through 1999, the report found minority-owned firms were passed over for $7 million worth of city contracts over the past four years and women-owned firms missed out on $1.5 million worth of work they could have received.
Morrow warned that some of those businesses may have been passed over because they were not the lowest responsible bidders, as by law they must be to win city contracts.
The full study has not been released. Rather, city councilman Sala Udin, chairman of the study commission, released a 10-page summary of the findings.
According to the summary, compliance with city goals is not strictly enforced and has allowed a "significant number" of front companies, controlled by white men, to flourish.
The study makes broad recommendations to improve contracting procedures. They include the city and its authorities establishing programs to certify and monitor participation in contracts -- tasks currently handled by Allegheny County, state and federal agencies -- and giving those programs more expertise and might.
It says payments to contractors and subcontractors should be tracked to continually assess participation of minorities and women, and recommends a number of measures to help small businesses of all kinds get government work.
Those tactics could include help with financing and insurance, publicizing contract opportunities better and cutting big contracts into smaller pieces to get more small businesses involved.
According to Eleanor Ramsey, the consultant in charge of the study, the city should convene a task force to go over the recommendations and draft new contracting regulations.
Much of the work on the new regulations will likely go to Morrow, a disparity study commission member. She said it could be some time before the changes are implemented, as they're on the back burner behind two related matters.
The city is already planning to merge its Equal Opportunity Review Commission with the county's Department of Minority, Women and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. And it is trying to implement Udin's "Pittsburgh Works" ordinance, which requires city residents to fill 35 percent of the work hours at city-funded construction projects costing more than $200,000.
This weekend, the city and county are sponsoring an affirmative action conference to address issues raised in the study. Last night, Ramsey presented a summary of her findings to about 95 people at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Today, workshops and panel discussions will be held.
"The playing field is still not level," Udin told the conferees. "No matter how many crumbs are thrown out, we won't be satisfied until the playing field is level."
One successful minority contractor explained why he is attending the conference.
"I'm looking for more opportunities for my company," said Lonnie Coleman, president of Coleman Spohn Corp. "And I'm looking for the opportunity to reach back and help others."
Coleman's company is a subcontractor on the convention center expansion project, working on estimates and cost analysis of mechanical systems.
He said another contractor mentored him when he got into the business in 1976, and now it's his chance to "pass the torch."
"In a forum like this," he said, "we can create some strategic alliances and help build a better Pittsburgh."
Staff writer Bill Heltzel contributed to this report.
|
||||||||||||
