Revised City of South Bend Disparity Study Report

Home Browse Search

City of South Bend Disparity Study 2020 Implement Compliance and Monitoring Policies and Procedures: It is essential that the City adopt contract award and performance standards for program compliance and monitoring to ensure that any new M/WBE program sets nar- rowly tailored goals and eligibility requirements and embody best practices. In general, compliance and monitoring should include the following elements. 1. Clearly delineated policies and forms by which a bidder or proposer can estab- lish that it has either met the contract goal(s) or made good faith efforts to do so. 2. Rules for how participation by certified firms will be counted towards the goal(s). A firm must perform a "commercially useful function' in order to be counted for goal attainment and how various types of goods and services will be credited towards meeting goals must be spelled out. 3. Criteria and pro- cesses for how non-performing, certified firms can be substituted during per- formance. 4. Contract closeout procedures and standards for sanctions for firms that fail to meet their contractual requirements under the program. 5. A process to appeal adverse determinations under the program that meets due process standards. 3. Develop Performance Standards and a Review Process To meet the requirements of strict constitutional scrutiny and ensure that best practices in program administration are applied, the City should conduct a full and thorough review of its race- and gender -neutral measures and the eviden- tiary basis for any new M/WBE program approximately every five to seven years. This includes adopting a sunset date for the M/WBE program. This is a constitutional requirement to meet the narrow tailoring test that race -and gender -conscious measures be used only when necessary. A new disparity study or other applicable research should be commissioned in time to meet the sunset date. It is important for the overall success of a new program to evaluate its effec- tiveness in reducing the systemic barriers identified bythe study. In addition to meeting goals, possible benchmarks be: • Progress towards meeting the overall, annual M/WBE goal. • The number of bids or proposals, industry and the dollar amount of the awards and the goal shortfall, where the bidder was unable to meet the goals and submitted good faith efforts to do so. • The number and dollar amount of bids or proposals and industry rejected as non-responsive for failure to make good faith efforts to meet the goal. • The number, industry and dollar amount of M/WBE substitutions during contract performance. 16 01010 Colette Holt & Associates, All Rights Reserved.