PORTSMOUTH
The City Council is scheduled to discuss a policy on contracts for minority- and female-owned businesses at 5 p.m. today during a public work session.
The topic has brought conflict to City Hall in the past.
During an October council meeting, one resident said the city was already doing a “good job” contracting minorities based on his analysis, while another said a business program for minorities and women was “racist and sexist” because “the minority in Portsmouth actually happens to be white males.”
MGT of America Inc. last year completed a $200,000 analysis of the city’s contracts and found that minority- and female-owned businesses receive significantly fewer than those owned by white men.
From 2009 to 2013, the city spent $26.5 million on construction contracts. Black-owned businesses received 1.73 percent of that money, and nonminority female-owned businesses received 0.04 percent.
Councilman Mark Whitaker has taken the lead on diversity in public contracts.
He was a member of the School Board when MGT found inequities among its contractors. The study led the board to create a Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise program, which requires large or prime contractors to make a “good faith effort” to hire minority- and female-owned subcontractors.
Whitaker has said a citywide policy would aim to open up some of the larger contracts that small minority- and female-owned firms say are challenging to compete for.
Details of the potential policy have not been released.
Johanna Somers?, 757-446-2478, johanna.somers@pilotonline.com
Follow @JohannaSomers1 on Twitter.
