The 2022-2023 Guilford County fiscal budget is in the books and the Democratic-led Board of Commissioners got much of what they had been asking for – more social programs, more money for schools, more money for community non-profits, higher pay and more benefits for county employees.
However, there’s still at least one goal that remains elusive, and one that, this week, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said will be a focus in the coming months. That’s the county’s longstanding effort to give more business to minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) – especially to minority businesses, since, Alston said, that’s one place the county has been egregiously lacking in the past.
The county authorized about $300,000 for a disparity study to look at county contracts and other business where and the results of that study, Alston said, will provide the county with a lot of the information it needs to remedy the problem.
When the Board of Commissioners met in High Point earlier this year the issue was a sore spot for county staff again when the board heard a report and Alston and other commissioners were dismayed about the continued low percentage of county business that goes to minority firms.
The county does a little better when it comes to using women-owned firms.
One problem is that the county commissioners are bound by state law in many cases of offering county contracts. That means they must select the firm with the lowest bid as long as that firm is capable of doing a good job. But Alston said there are plenty of strategies the county can use to increase the use of minority-owned businesses and the study results will be a roadmap for a strategic attack of the problem.
“We should have the results in September and that will tell us where our problem areas are,” Alston said.
He said there are strategies the board can use to increase the number and size of county contracts that are awarded to minority firms.
“On larger contracts, we can set a benchmark for the use of minority contractors,” the chairman said.
That’s a way of encouraging large firms to incorporate minority firms as sub-contractors in a major county project.
Alston also said county staff can do more to seek to encourage minority businesses to bid on county projects and the county can make additional efforts to seek out minority architects and many other professions where the county has a poor record of using minorities over the years.
Why cant we just hire the BEST person for the job. The foundry had to use minority construction because taxes helped pay for building. Parking lot fell apart in under a year and work was sub par
We can’t hire the best because in most cases the law is to hire the cheapest. You get what you pay for…
Hire the best- race should never be a consideration unless you are a racial racist!
Law says hire the cheapest. Diversity progra.s are just about increasing minority participation and have nothing to do with who wins the contracts.
Outside of government circles, it’s called racism.
It is at times racism that minority firms are not hired. Well said!
You really are our special resident dumb@$$.
The simple reason is that not many minor contractors are applying because not many qualified ones exist + the ones that may be qualified just don’t apply – for whatever reason.
Spending $300,000.00 of our tax money is NOT going to solve the problem.
Wa wa wa keep beating that drum and cry me a river. What a waste of 300k of taxpayer money. Maybe you can step in and help another black owned business out of their own incompetence like you did a few years ago. Please skip do us a favor and take that Thelma and Louise ride with mr. jones SOON
All governments should be using the best person/company for the contract work, regardless of skin color.
Nope. They use the cheapest. The best work more profitable and avoid cheap government contracts
All contractors should be drug tested before getting any county money.
Lol…what’s changed?
“When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”
300,000 study? Doesn’t the county employ plenty of highly compensated dearly beloved amazing staff members that can count and do in house analysis? If not why do we have these overpaid bureaucrats sitting around watching our lack of lifeguards and other county business languish? What a waste of taxpayer money and comment on county staffs ability to do simple data analysis.