Chattanooga government is looking to boost diversity in its use of contracted vendors after a study presented to the City Council this past summer showed that only 10.78% of city-awarded contracts over five years ending in fiscal 2018 went to minority- and women-owned companies.
The universe of “eligible” businesses that are women-owned or minority-owned in our local region is 22%, and minorities make up 38% of Chattanooga’s population, according to Karen McReynolds, director of the city’s Office of Multicultural Affairs.
The $175,000 disparity study, performed by Atlanta-based Griffin & Strong, a law and public policy firm specializing in disparity research and contract compliance, assessed the city’s contract spending in construction, architecture and engineering, professional services, other services and goods.
The research found “statistically significant under-utilization of minority and female owned firms.”
Well, yes. We’d say so. The numbers mean half of the local minority and women businesses are being left out. It is overly kind, actually, to only label that gross disparity as “statistically significant.”