New York City has earned a passing grade of “C” after four straight years of getting “D-plus,” after a poll on minority and women-owned business enterprises, Comptroller Scott Stringer said on Sunday.
Stringer also released the results of a survey of more than 550 minority and women-owned business enterprises. This poll “revealed systemic barriers to competition MWBEs face when navigating city contracting — including unresponsive city agencies, opaque procurement processes and exclusionary contract language,” according to the comptroller’s report entitled
“If we want a strong economy with real, local community wealth creation, we need an inclusive economy. That’s why my office proposes recommendations every year on how the city can level the playing field and increase access and opportunity for MWBEs,” Stringer said.
The report looked at 32 city agencies as well as the city overall and assigned grades based on progress in spending with MWBEs. It is designed to be used as a tool to improve performance and transparency in spending and increase competition in city procurement while saving money for taxpayers.
On the positive side, as the city got its first overall “C” grade while for the first time, no city agencies received an overall “F” grade.
In fiscal 2019, the city spent $911.9 million with MWBEs, a gain of $180.8 million from fiscal 2018; 30 out of 32 agencies improved or maintained their grades from last year; and 92% of the city’s top 50 competitive contracts (about $1.7 billion) had MWBE goals.
On the negative, side, the report said there was room for increased spending with every group. The city earned a “B” on spending with Asian American-owned businesses, a “C” with Hispanic American-owned businesses, a “D” with women and an “F” with African American-owned businesses. The report also said that the city awarded $20.5 billion in contracts in fiscal 2019, of which only $1.007 billion, or 4.9%, were awarded to MWBEs; 17% of city-certified MWBEs received city payments in fiscal 2019, a 20% decline from fiscal 2018.
The comptroller’s office also conducted a survey of over 550 MWBEs to help create recommendations aimed at reducing barriers and increase access to opportunities for minority and women-owned firms.
The poll found that 82% of respondents said there was a need to improve criteria on how vendors are selected for city work; 69% said agencies were unresponsive when they reached out to chief contracting officers, MWBE officers or other related liaisons for meeting requests or phone calls so that 75% said agency responsiveness needed improvement; 38% who did not compete for contracts said they were not aware of procurement opportunities and said the process was too time consuming and hard to understand; and over 80% of prime vendors/subcontractors waited on average more than 30 days get paid for their first invoice.
The report said the city should: require agencies to conduct market analyses and address solicitation language that creates unnecessary barriers to competition; conduct a workforce disparity study and create a workforce diversity program; and expand the role of MWBE officers to serve as advocates and to address agency responsiveness and contracting issues.
"Accountability leads to improvement — and while today’s report indicates modest progress by the city, we cannot rest on our laurels until all city agencies make the grade,” Stringer said. “We know that there is more work to be done to dismantle the systemic barriers MWBEs face when navigating city procurement and contracting. We must do more to ensure that the MWBE community has the tools, resources, and capacity to compete and thrive in our economy.”
