City councilors are pushing for more transparency about the diversity of the people to whom Boston City Hall contracts out work, and for the city to take more steps to make sure women, minorities and their businesses are considered and kept in the loop.
“If we believe in equity, then we’ve got to take this seriously and we have to do a better job,” Council President Kim Janey told the Herald.
Janey and City Councilor Michelle Wu are calling for a hearing about the city’s contract procurement process, noting that, just 1% of the $664 million in construction and services contracts that Boston awarded in 2018 went to businesses owned by women and people of color.
The newly recreated Committee on Post-Audit and Oversight, which Wu chairs, will hold a hearing on the order at a later date after introducing it on Wednesday.
Mayor Martin Walsh issued an executive order last year to modernize the procurement process, and City Hall holds dozens of free “City Contracting Opportunity Fairs” and training sessions for local businesses to help them get a foot in the door. The city estimates 200 people came to a fair on Wednesday. The city’s also in the midst of a “disparity study” to take a look at these types of issues in procurement.
But the councilors say they want more concrete steps and benchmarks from the administration on how they’re going to raise that number in Boston, where more than half of residents are women and people of color.
“I’m looking for something different from the administration that goes beyond ‘we had a fair,’” Janey said.
Janey and Wu both said the city needs to be more clear on what bids are upcoming, and how to apply for them. Both said it’s hard for business owners to know what opportunities are coming up and how to bid on contracts.
“We have to be specific about investing our dollars — taxpayer dollars — into businesses and contracts that are going to be helping close these gaps,” Wu said, referring to wealth gaps between black and white residents. “We’re just seeing the tiniest fraction of these contracts going there.”
