Comprehensive steps needed on contract biases

The disparity study showing that African-Americans face discrimination in every aspect of Shelby County’s purchasing process confirmed what already was known.

The study makes it incumbent upon the Shelby County Commission, the administration of county Mayor Mark Luttrell and other stakeholders to find common-sense solutions that do not drive up the cost of goods and services or create sizable new bureaucracies that are ineffective, as happened in some past efforts to solve the disparity problem.

In fact, the city of Memphis and Shelby County Schools, which are conducting their own disparity studies, should find a way to piggyback with the county on dealing with this issue.

We like County Commissioner Steve Basar’s idea that it would help solve the disparity issue if the three government entities had the same guidelines.

The study was conducted by Mason Tillman Associates of Oakland, California, which looked at purchasing for construction, professional services, commodities and other services between Jan. 1, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2014. The company made apples-to-apples comparisons, finding that businesses owned by white men received 88.32 percent of the contract dollars awarded by county government between 2012 and 2014, or $168.2 million of the total $190.5 million that was spent.

During that same period, businesses owned by African-Americans received 5.8 percent of the county’s contract dollars, or $11 million, with businesses owned by white women receiving 5.15 percent, or $9.8 million. Native American businesses got 0.37 percent ($713,301), Asian-Americans got 0.33 percent ($624,960) and Hispanic Americans got 0.02 percent ($44,859).

The firm’s work looked at a company’s ability to do the work, and the report showed that even when minority-owned or women-owned businesses were capable of fulfilling a county contract, they did not receive that contract.

“If there’s underuse of a given ethnic group and that underuse is statistically significant, it’s discrimination,” said Mason Tillman President Eleanor Mason Ramsey, who made the presentation to the County Commission’s general government committee Wednesday. She is right. No one is talking about setting racial quotas, something that County Commissioner Heidi Shafer said court rulings have frowned upon. But government entities can set measurable goals and guidelines, when discrimination is documented, to increase the number of African-American- and women-owned businesses that get government contracts.

As individuals, we are comfortable with using the same service providers over and over because we trust them to do a good job.

When it comes to awarding government contracts, though, that mindset has to be set aside. The money being spent comes from taxpayers, and African-American- and women-owned businesses that can perform the work should have a fair shot at those dollars.

The study verified that the good-ol’-boy network is well embedded when it comes to awarding county contracts. One of the solutions offered Wednesday would be to rotate contracts so the same companies are not being hired over and over.

The final version of the Mason Tillman study will be presented to the commission later this year. Still, it was good hear County Commission Chairman Terry Roland talk about the urgency of making changes.

Yet, this just cannot be a government fix. There needs to a determined commitment in the business community to also fix disparities in how private companies award contracts. This is a communitywide problem that will not be remedied without effective private and government partnerships.