Minority contracting figures still sore point for city

The Daley administration on Friday put the best possible face on its continuing struggle to boost minority contracting to avert the annual controversy during City Council budget hearings.

Despite a financial crisis that has cut city spending, minority businesses received a 29 percent slice of the $1.4 billion contracting pie through Sept. 30, officials said. But City Hall acknowledged that it had awarded fewer contracts to companies owned by women, without specifying the drop.

The Department of Procurement Services press release -- distributed late Friday when bad news is traditionally buried -- also cherry-picked a few facts to portray the city's efforts in the best possible light.

African Americans got 9 percent of all construction contracts, up from 8 percent during the same period a year ago. Blacks also got 13 percent of federally funded contracts earmarked for so-called "disadvantaged business enterprises," up from 3 percent.

Hispanics' share of non-construction contracts rose from 11 percent to 13 percent. And the minority business share of non-construction contracts rose from 23 percent to 26 percent.

Every year, the Department of Procurement Services gets hammered during budget hearings by African-American aldermen furious about the black contracting numbers. No matter who the chief procurement officer is, the numbers never seem to climb out of the single digits.

Ald. Ed Smith (28th), former chairman of the City Council's Black Caucus, blasted the Daley administration for putting out a partial report card and attempting to bury the disappointing results.

"We're not gonna sit back and allow them to cherry-pick these numbers" to make it look better than it is, Smith said. "These numbers are not getting any better."