‘C’ for city on minority, women biz

The city is falling short when it comes to hiring minority- and women-owned businesses, or MWBEs, according to a new report from Comptroller Scott Stringer.

He graded most city agencies a “C” for efforts to award contracts to MWBEs, noting just 4.9% of city contracts went to such businesses this past fiscal year.

“As thousands of businesses struggle to stay afloat amid the economic fallout of COVID-19, it is painfully clear that the pandemic is disproportionately hurting MWBEs,” Stinger said in a statement, calling for mandatory “unconscious bias” training at city agencies and other steps to award more contracts to MWBEs.

Stringer’s report card, set to be released Tuesday, broke down the city’s grade by different categories. The city got an “F” for awarding contracts to African-Americans, a “D” for women, a “B” for Hispanic-Americans and an “A” for Asian-Americans.

Fiscal year 2020 was the second year in a row that the city got a “C” overall, having received a “D+” the previous four years.

Stringer noted the city neglected MWBEs in awarding $1.5 billion in contracts for goods and services related to COVID. MWBEs got just $168.5 million, or about 11%, of the pie.

In June, Stringer found a majority of MWBE owners thought they wouldn’t last another six months in the current economic crisis.

Stringer’s new report card came with homework for the city.

The comptroller called on Mayor de Blasio’s Task Force on Racial Equity to come up with a “targeted plan” to direct more COVID-related procurements and other city spending to MWBEs.

Stringer also said the city should establish a way to pay for MWBEs’ upfront overhead costs, among other steps to keep such businesses alive.

Noting the city offers training on “unconscious bias” — or prejudices people are not necessarily aware of — to city employees on a voluntary basis, Stringer called for an executive order making such training required.

“It is a failure of government that, in the face of our MWBE community’s severe economic distress, the city showed little to no improvement toward reaching MWBE spending goals this year,” Stringer stated. “As we work to rebuild our economy, we must ensure that the local engines of wealth creation — our minority and women businesses owners — have the tools, resources, access and opportunities to participate and share in that recovery.”