McLean County Times

At its April 24 meeting, Bloomington City Council approved an ordinance which amended parts of the city code to implement new equal opportunity initiatives for city contracts.

City manager Tim Gleason explained to council that the implementation of the Diversity Procurement Initiative will encouraged equity in the awarding of city contracts through promoting the use and partnership with Minority Business Enterprises (MBE), Women-Owned Business Enterprises (WBE) and Disadvantaged Business Owners (DBE) on city projects totaling $50,000 or more. 

"This is an opportunity to expand those opportunities for minorities," Gleason said. "This is not something that is financially impactful to some of the businesses out in the community that have a relationship with the city and, you know, take the city contracts. This is a step. That's the requirement. That's the expectation of the city, is that you try to employ minorities at different phases of whatever the project might be with the city. And if those opportunities are not out there, then at least you've tried"

The initiative requires a good faith effort on behalf of the city to have 8% of its total contracts be awarded to MBEs, DBEs, and/or WBEs in any varying percentages within that 8%. There are also goal percentages for total hours worked by minority workers and by female workers. Companies can adhere to the initiative by reaching those percentage markers or providing written evidence that they made good faith efforts to achieve them. The City of Bloomington also plans to create and monitor a MBE/DBE/WBE database as the state does and will work with companies to meet these goals, or label them as nonresponsive if they fail to comply.

Michael Hurt, chief diversity & inclusion officer, spoke about some of the concerns from the community about being able to meet the expectations with each contract, and he assured council that, “What we wanted those entities to understand is that we intend on walking side by side with you, to assist you in any way we can to help these companies fulfill the tenants of the contracts that we let, and also our office will be there to verify that: Yes, Company C really went to the wall to find these individuals, but at the time the project was met, no one was available, but they made an excellent, good faith effort and that is all we were asking them to do.” 

Council appeared pleased with the initiative and the improvements it will bring to the economy, businessess, community, and access to grants and funding programs through their efforts. 

 “I think this initiative helps us show our community and visitors what's important to us, what we value," Alderman Jeff Craybill said. "These initiatives not only benefit the individual companies but also the community as a whole. The more that each person can contribute to our economy, the better we will be as a community will make our business community more diverse and vibrant.”

Council unanimously accepted the ordinance.