Revised City of South Bend Disparity Study Report

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City of South Bend Disparity Study 2020 forming contract work. Minorities and women repeatedly discussed their struggles with negative perceptions and attitudes of their capabilities in the business world. • The assumption is that minority firms are less qualified. • Discriminatory attitudes, stereotypes and negative perceptions of qualifications, professionalism and capabilities of minorities and women exist. • Aspirational or voluntary approaches were reported to be ineffective. • Minority and woman entrepreneurs felt excluded from the networks necessary for success and reported barriers to City contracts in particular. • Access to information about opportunities was reported as a big problem, as were barriers to accessing the City's procurement process and meeting contract specifications. • Contract size is a major impediment to M/WBEs performing work for the City, especially as prime vendors. • More outreach to M/WBEs and small local firms by the City was suggested, along with implementation of capacity -building support measures for minority and women entrepreneurs. D. Recommendations The quantitative and qualitative data in this Study provide a thorough examination of the evidence of the experiences of minority- and woman -owned business enter- prises ("M/WBEs") in the City's geographic and industry markets. As required by strict constitutional scrutiny, we analyzed evidence of M/WBEs' utilization by the City as measured by dollars spent. We next estimated the availability of M/WBEs in the City's markets in the aggregate and by detailed industry code. We then com- pared the City's utilization of M/WBEs to the availability of all ready, willing and able firms in its markets to calculate whether there are disparities between utiliza- tion and availability. We also solicited anecdotal or qualitative evidence from M/ WBEs' experiences in obtaining contracts in the public and private sectors. Based upon these findings and national best practices for contracting equity programs, we make the following recommendations. 1. Implement Race- and Gender -Neutral Measures This is a critical element of narrowly tailoring the program, so that the burden on non-M/WBEs is no more than necessary to achieve the City's remedial pur- 01010 Colette Holt & Associates, All Rights Reserved. 11