New York City’s $13.8 billion annual procurement budget largely shuts out women- and minority-owned firms, said city Comptroller Scott Stringer, who gave the city an overall grade of D-plus in his
The city has certified more than 4,100 vendors as official Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, but “we’ve left 80% of them in the lurch when it comes to actually giving out contracts,” Stringer said. “We owe our city’s richly diverse business community more than just lip service.”
For fiscal 2015 the city’s grade rose slightly from D, reflecting the MWBE share of the city’s total procurement having risen from 3.9% in 2014 to 5.3%. Eight agencies received higher grades this year, while only four received lower grades.
Merely $725 million of the city’s $13.8 billion procurement pool is going to women and minority owned businesses, which Stringer called “an unacceptably low number by any standard.”
Problem areas, he said, include Small Business Services, which dropped from a D to an F. In addition, the report card lowered the Department of Probation from C to D, while the Department of Cultural Affairs went from B to C.
