Stringer gave NYC a ‘D’ in spending on minority and women-owned businesses
More than two-thirds of city agencies earned “D”s or “F”s on Comptroller Scott M. Stringer’s inaugural letter grades assessing how well New York City government is procuring goods and services through minority and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBEs). The letter grades, outlined in the “Making the Grade” report released on Wednesday, are intended as a diagnostic tool for agencies to improve performance and transparency in M/WBE spending, increase competition in city procurement and save taxpayer dollars.
“New York City spends more than $17 billion on goods and services each year, but less than four percent goes toward Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises,” Stringer said. “When the city gets a ‘D’ for how well it is meeting its own goals, it’s clearly unacceptable. Growing the pie for M/WBE firms will be a key weapon in our battle against income inequality while increasing competition in procurement, driving down costs for taxpayers and creating jobs across all five boroughs.”
Local Law 1 of 2013 – which updated citywide goals for M/WBE procurement, broken down along ethnic and industry lines – provided the framework for the grading system. Thirty-one Mayoral Agencies and the Comptroller’s Office received grades, which are based on actual spending by City agencies. The criteria used to ascertain each Agency’s achievement against Local Law 1 goals included determining the total Local Law 1-eligible spending by each City agency, determining each agency’s actual spending across M/WBE categories and industries and weighting results based on how agencies spend their budgets (for example, if an agency spends 50 percent of its budget on construction, 50 percent of its grade is based on M/WBE utilization in construction.)