De Blasio’s goal of 30 percent contract awards to minorities and women may hit stumbling block in Albany
Brooklyn officials back the plan
Flanked by minority and women business owners, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday an ambitious plan to award 30 percent of the dollar amount of city contracts to minority- and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBEs) by 2021.
De Blasio said, “We have a simple vision to distribute opportunity fair and wide – to open the door wide for everyone who is ready to do this important work, to break down the barriers, to create fairness.”
M/WBEs were awarded eight percent of all contract dollars in fiscal year ’15, and 14 percent in FY ’16, a number de Blasio said was greater than any achieved by his predecessors.
De Blasio was criticized by city Comptroller Scott Stringer recently when an audit performed by his office found only 5.3 percent of the money spent by the city on goods and services in 2015 went to M/WBEs. The mayor’s office found that low number to be “misleading,” according to PIX11.