re: BR Metro Council Funds $300,000 “Disparity” Study of City Contracts

are half of all businesses owned by minorities? Because that is the real number that matters here. It should be proportional to the number of businesses owned if they want to start doing governmental favors for people just because of the color of their skin

I'm sure slim gonna get his cut

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Many southern cities have pretty stout DBE/HUB participation requirements including Houston at 23.7% goal which is always surpassed.

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Houston is able to get to that % because of the many Spanish owned businesses.

I don't think Baton Rouge should be compared to Houston under any circumstances.

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Gravy getting a Cadillac Escalade in the near future baby!!!!

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Some repo guy is licking his lips right now

I've seen more racist studies on the quad.

I like how plenty of his people are just listed as an entrepreneur

Sounds legit

I have so much value-added input on this nonsense but I'm too tired.

Griffin-Strong out of Atlanta will likely do the study. It will take 2-3 years to complete.

They'll have recommendations and do a study analysis that alleges racism at the governmental employee level, which is absurd. Like 45-60% of government employees are black.

They'll make absurd recommendations like creating mandatory requirements of 21% subcontractor to minority owned businesses.

Blacks will claim to be underrepresented but the easiest way to get a government contract is to have a construction company with a history of past performance. Black businesses claim they don't have a track record as a Prime, so they can't compete for Prime contracts. No duh. We have a 30M Design-Build contract with a strict budget. Who am I going to trust to do it right? The large business or Jethro three blocks over.

What is wanted by a large percentage of the agitators is to be given handouts. The ones who want sustainable change understand it's education and outreach that encourages Minority businesses and small businesses to participate in government contracts.

As you bring spend more local, costs rise. Upwards of 20+%. That's a fact, jack. One case, we moved from a local supplier of Office Supplies to Staples. We saved $250,000 over 4 years. We were paying 32% above what we should. The same is more prevalent in construction costs but with more risk.

This approach is not sustainable for many local governments. So, people want to not raise taxes but they also want spend to remain in their local communities. This isn't something that can just be corrected. They don't have the budgets to support it. The only ones who have the ability to deal with such risks and budget is the Feds, which is where these programs excel. If you can call it that.

The part that's most egregious to me is when they'll talk about the local government providing contract financing. Paying 20% of all costs upfront to minority-owned businesses. The government is not a bank and this runs counter to government procurement principles.

Construction contracts should be held to a 10% profit threshold, though some local governments will allow 15% on general labor.

This guy Gravy is ignorant and doesn't understand the first thing about government contracts. He just wants a handout. I've been signing contracts at all levels of government for years and not once have I had a bakery, barber, restaurant, etc. come across my desk. If anything, small food purchases for events are spent on P-Cards and at the discretion of those buying because they're under the non-competitive threshold. Usually, that's $2-5K

Even the politicians are idiots and do not understand how procurement and contract negotiation works.

I had an elected official tell me once that we needed to create a "contract rotation program". You know what that is? It's fraud. They build a list minority-owned vendors and as a contract becomes available you hand them out to people on the list. I shite you not.

Actually, my city contracts are mostly covered by women (WBE) and Asian based minorities.....you’d be surprised to know the HUBs are not primarily Hispanic.