Study Shows City Contracting Disparity

A new study assesses how diverse and inclusive Indianapolis’s business contracting is and finds substantial disparities.

The research shows minority, women, veteran and disabled owned businesses are much less likely to have contracts with the City of Indianapolis.

Director of the Office of Minority and Business Development Camile Blunt says a disparity study like this has not been done since 1995.

"It became very apparent that this needed to happen to grow and move our program forward," says Blunt. 

The city awarded more than $870 million in contracting between 2014 and 2018, and less than 15 percent of it went to minority- or women-owned businesses.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett says the goal is to make the contracting process more transparent and fair.

"And this is my brief summation, we have work to do," says Hogsett. 

BBC consulting group prepared the study, and Sameer Bawa explains how disparity is factored.

"The degree to which those businesses actually participated in city contracts and procurements and whether or not they were under utilized relative to their availability for that work," says Bawa.

Recommendations include setting contract goals and unbundling large jobs.