09-03-19 MBE/WBE - Laserfiche WebLink

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under $25,000 because it does not have to go before the Board of Public Works. There are still guidelines, but if it is over $25,000, it has to be reviewed and approved by the Board of Public Works, which is made up of community members that were appointed. Boardmember Williams then asked, Is that board diverse? Ms. Brooks replied, If you're talking about racial diversity, no. It does have gender diversity. Mr. Schmidt explained, Once you get to the Board of Public Works level, you have to issue to the lowest bidder.You don't really have a choice yet.They are just approving the lowest bidder.When it is under$25,000, that is where more education for the buyer comes in and where centralization of the purchasing can be more effective. The board continued to discuss State law and how it affects the process of the City. Boardmember Alexander asked, Is there any data about doing business with minority owned businesses that are not certified? Ms. Brooks replied, We've been collecting that over the past couple of years on the annual purchasing report. There are a lot-much more than are certified. In some cases,they don't see the value in certification and, in some cases, they feel like if they certify they won't get the business they have right now. The board then discussed the City structure regarding procurement, the education process and the City policy regarding diversity in purchasing, how the City chooses vendors, as well as preferred vendors and how they are designated. Ms. Brooks explained, The City is trying to move away from services like janitorial where MBE contracting usually is, and move toward where the real money is, in construction. Mr. Schmidt stated, That is where the life changing money comes from. Ms. Brooks stated, It changes the economy when you are hiring people who have never had their foot in the door before. We aren't going to be shifting anything by just continuing to give all of the janitorial contracts to minorities. She continued, In conclusion,women and minorities still continue to suffer discriminatory barriers to fair access to South Bend contracts and subcontracts.There are a lot of sources of the registration information. Businesses have to register with the Building Department if they want to do any construction in the City. We partnered with them to look at that list and do some outreach to determine how many of those were actually women or minority owned businesses that we did not seem to appear on a certified list. That is where we hit the jackpot. There are a lot more than what would be accounted for in an annual report because they are not certified. But they are registered to do construction work here in the City. They update that list on a quarterly basis, so we are able to continue to do outreach to that list. She went on,With the process for vendor registration with the City,the goal is to make that a more robust registration process in the future. When we can ask the owner if they are a minority owner, and if they are a certified minority business, that is two (2) sets of data, whereas right now people