Guilford County government for years has had a dismal record when it comes to employing minority firms for county construction contracts and other contracts for various needed goods and services.
But that’s clearly going to change in a big way in 2023.
It’s obvious, just from the conversations that county officials have had since the ball dropped over Times Square, that the county is making a major commitment to addressing the issue – even if that comes at a large cost and means delays on some projects.
Guilford County MWBE Program Director Shaunne Thomas told the Board of Commissioners in a recent work session that the county is now looking to other parts of North Carolina and to other states to increase MWBE participation.
“One thing we’re looking at doing is trying to attract other MBE firms in other states to come to Greensboro, because we have, not just this work, but more work coming in the future,” Thomas told the commissioners. “So, we’re not taking ‘We don’t have any’ as an answer – we’re taking the answer to be, ‘We’re going to go get them.’”
The county is still limited by North Carolina law, which requires projects to go to the lowest bidder, but the county also plans to employee other strategies like establishing a program that helps minority companies meet bonding requirements and by breaking up bid offers in ways that will be more enticing to minority firms, which then to be smaller than other firms.
Vice Chair of the Board of Commissioners Carlvena Foster asked county staff if seeking minority firms from far-away places would have any impact on the timeline for projects such as the new Sheriff’s Department headquarters that the county is now building.
Guilford County Facilities and Property Management Director Eric Hilton answered, “It could,” and then he added, “We’re trying our best to keep the end date firm.”
Hilton said that, in a worst-case scenario, the effort would likely add a few weeks to project timelines.
Earlier in the work session, Hilton had explained to the commissioners that – due to the current extremely high demand for construction crews, and the desires of local governments and other entities to meet MWBE goals – it is currently very difficult to find and hire minority firms to the extent Guilford County would like to.
Technically, the county is trying to address its MWBE problem – not employing enough women- and minority-owned business enterprises in county endeavors. However, in reality, the current conversation is all about MBE – getting minority businesses to participate.
In the past, one thing that’s irked the commissioners is hearing a report that MWBE participation was relatively high for a project – only to look closely and find that all of the MWBE participation was from W’s, not M’s.
The commissioners recently received the results of a disparity study and one recommendation from that study was to break the stats down into women-owned businesses and other for clarity.
The county commissioners have already decided to follow one recommendation from that study: hire more workers to up MWBE participation.
At the board’s first meeting of the year on Thursday, Jan. 5, the commissioners took the unprecedented step of adding five new county positions at a cost of $630,000 a year solely for the purpose of increasing Guilford County’s MWBE numbers.
That comes on the heels of the county paying $290,000 for the disparity study on the MWBE situation. The county is also purchasing new computer software that better tracks minority participation in county contracts.
Why bother, majority of the time work is not complete, is substandard or before the the project is complete they ask for more money. Ask Skip he knows how that works, a few years ago on the Brightwood School project when a minority contractor was doing the glass and storefront on that project and cried to the commissioners he couldn’t complete the job theybgot more money. Isn’t that right Skip. Some elephants don’t forget Racist standards. If that had been a White contractor Skip would still be laughing. Sounds like Cow Gate doesn’t it Skip
Why Why Why? Adds more to the total price, adds time to the completion of project and will probably provide shabby results to the end product, so to please a certain group. Get out the vaseline and bend over tax payers. More warm and fuzzy good feelings people!!!!
This seems like a boondoggle to me. Spending nearly a million $ on a study and new headcount to hopefully entice more minority owned construction and other firms to play in our neighborhood. If firms of all types are allowed to bid then what is the issue? Minority owned firms can certainly bid, they are not being blocked from doing so I hope. Still a firm that can do the job right and on-time, regardless of the owner’s skin or gender, should be who our electeds should focus on.
There is a simple question that should be asked by each of us in our everyday life. What is best for me and my family? The question that should be asked by our elected officials after the legality question is satisfied is what is best for the public. Whenever you start manufacturing reasons to deviate from that premise such as seeking MWBE contracts for the sake of satisfying a sense of “fairness” over merit, the public loses, all the public no matter their sex or color. Would you choose a doctor based on color or sex or would you choose based on merit, experience and demonstrated ability. To base any decision on sex or color is just reverse discrimination.
Two of my wife’s doctors are Indian. Sometimes I have a hard time with their accent. One of my doctors is Indian, and one is black. All these are our choice. They are not forced on me.
White folks need NOT apply!
Makes sense because these companies just can not charge more than the non minority , home grown companies can.. Be Smart
Racism at its best, qualifications unknown.
Well this is very interesting and necessary. Closing the gaps in MWBE capable firms and agencies is the ultimate goal.
It’s nothing interesting or necessary about it. It’s the same as college admissions taking color over qualification. If the same program was being used for White people, black people would be up in arms. Nothing but racism
Guilford County is run by a bunch of racist idiots. That’s all I got to say.
This is something that should have County citizens should be up in arms about
It’s also becoming more and more obvious that whatever has infected the GSO city council is beginning to spread to the County level.
The problem is any of the jobs are only possible to take if you currently have a staff to do large jobs and the equipment.
I dropped my status because you also had to pay for a lawyer or an accountant to certify your status and then was never qualified for any of the jobs.
An example: at the time I did transcription. The county had so much work I would have had to have 20 or more people, equipment, and fast turnaround.
Most minority businesses starting out don’t have those resources.
If they want more participation, they need to talk to people about the barriers and do something about it.
They don’t want to deal with multiple businesses, but how else would a business grow? And I would have never wanted to put my entire business into only the govt. One large client is asking for a disaster.
The business owners I met in the class the city offered a few years ago were competent people with the same difficulties: small.
You are exactly correct. The County and City don’t ever talk to small business owners to understand their issues with obtaining jobs and the barriers involved in doing business with them. They want to set parameters and throw the jobs out there and have fast simple solutions. The County isn’t interested in hiring multiple smaller firms to handle different aspects of their needs because that would take thought, time, and people who understood management, and they don’t have the managers or leadership to do that. All they have are activists who have agendas, but not people who really care about small business people whether run by women, minorities, or aliens.
The County and City “leaders” have one agenda and it’s not to run projects in the economic best interest of taxpayers or budgets. Their main goal is to be able to put citations on their vitae that show they’re important civil rights activists who continue to impress others which grows their influence and worth in high places.
Skip has watched White Man’s Burden with John Travolta one time too many. He seems fascinated with the story line.
The real issue is preferring one group of citizens over another, especially at taxpayer expense.
The people had a chance to throw the bums out during the last two elections, but did not.
According to the turnouts, it was not the minority voters, it was all those who didn’t bother to vote. So whose fault is it?
I get really (blanked)-off when I read about tax dollars being spent outside of the community. They would rather go out of state (and probably pay more money) than spend it with a local firm owned by a person of whatever color? A local firm that employs local people, many of whom are undoubtedly minorities? Competent government would make every effort to spend tax dollars back in the community, spend it among the people paying it.
The really scary part of this is you can’t make this stuff up.
I would hope local tax revenue be spent on local businesses. Sending money out of state just to have bragging rights about a misleading metric is unfortunate. The metric is misleading because a high MWBE % but the businesses are not local does not provide an accurate metric of the local area. I’m not saying it is a lie, but it gets real close.