In September, Tampa and Hillsborough County both suspended parts of decades-old programs intended to support women and minority-owned businesses.
Business owners were “totally shocked,” said Daryl Hych, chairperson of the Hillsborough County Black Chamber of Commerce.
The changes came as federal and state leaders crack down on diversity, equity and inclusionefforts. In January, President Donald Trump issued a spate ofexecutive orders targeting programs that promote diversity, including an order that threatened to withhold federal funding from local governments that did not terminate such policies and programs.And this summer, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Governmental Efficiency audited cities and counties across Florida in search of “waste, fraud and abuse” with a focus on “DEI-related spending inconsistent with state law.”
Local leaders said the changes were necessary to preserve federal funding. But some business owners said the moves showed a lack of support for historically disadvantaged groups.
“This will have a major impact,” Hych said.
In August, a city attorney sent a memo to Tampa’s leaders.
“The City, to receive federal funds, must now certify that it does not operate any programs that discriminate based on race or gender or otherwise violate federal anti-discrimination laws,” attorney Andrea Zelman wrote.
Tampa’s Women & Minority Business Enterprise may run afoul of federal orders, she said.
The program was established to help women and minority-owned businesses secure government contracts. The city could award extra points to certified businesses in the bidding process. It could also set annual goals for women and minority-owned business participation in city projects, among other benefits. Parts of the program were suspended Sept. 5.
Zelman did not specify the amount of federal funding at stake. But according to city websites, Tampa has gotten millions of dollars in federal grants in recent years, supporting disaster recovery, transit, housing and other projects.
Though the city’s program was “adopted and enforced in good faith compliance with both state and federal laws,” Zelman wrote, its suspension was “in the best interest of the City.”
In mid-September, Hillsborough County commissioners voted to suspend a similar program, citing upward of $180 million in annual grant funding from federal agencies. Commissioner Harry Cohen said reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other funding, would have been at risk.
“I want to make sure that our citizens get everything they deserve from the federal government, and that the money doesn’t go elsewhere when I know the need here is so great,” Cohen told the Tampa Bay Times. “We have to be prudent about the way that we make decisions in this environment.”
Business owners and local leaders across the region pointed fingers at the federal government.
“Nobody in city government is happy about this,” said Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who also voiced frustration about the recent suspension of the city’s Racial Reconciliation Committee.
“This is based on a federal government that is pouring gasoline on the fire of our historic racial and cultural divisions and making people believe that efforts to talk about race, to talk about discrimination, are in and of themselves discriminatory,” he said.
Santos Morales, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Enterprising Latinas, said local governments “have no choice” but to follow federal orders because “everyone is afraid.”
He said the business programs gave historically disadvantaged groups greater access to contracting opportunities, but “that didn’t mean anybody else was excluded.”
“A huge percentage of those dollars still went to nonminority, nonwomen-owned businesses,” he said.
Some said the city and county should do more to support affected businesses in the wake of the changes.
“The absence of targeted support has made it harder to compete for city contracts, which may have led to decreased revenue and opportunities for growth,” wrote Larry Pasetti, chief operating officer of an electrical contracting company, on LinkedIn. The company has minority and small business certifications from the city.
Genevieve Dobson said her debt management company was registered as a woman and minority-owned business through the city in 2020.
“We’re going to look back very ashamed that we allowed these things to happen,” Dobson said. “We can’t allow bullies to push us into making decisions that go against the better judgment of the majority.”
Hych said local leaders could use money from Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Areas — where taxpayer dollars are funneled back into the neighborhood to eliminate “slum” and “blight” — to support women and minority-owned businesses. He said he has spoken to City Council members and city staff to suggest the idea.
“But no one has come to the table with a creative idea,” Hych said. “They just dropped the hammer.”
Tampa’s Equal Business Opportunity office said it is “not aware of pushback” regarding the suspension.
Mayor Jane Castor said the same and pointed to still-intact city programs thatoffer benefits and incentives to small businesses.
“We can still support small, local businesses that, in reality, are quite often made up of women and minorities,” Castor said in an interview in October.
Ken Jones, director of Hillsborough’s Small Business Enterprises Division, said the county has expanded its race and gender-neutral small business program and held several outreach events to notify business owners of the change.
St. Petersburg, unlike Tampa and Hillsborough, has kept programs intended to support women and minority-owned businesses intact, according to the city’s website.
But the city has made other, quieter changes in response to state and federal scrutiny.
The Times reported in September that St. Petersburg removed the words “diversity” and “equity” from the titles of two city offices earlier this year. The Office of Equity became the Office of Community Impact, and the Office of Supplier Diversity — which oversees the city’s women and minority-business programs — became the Office of Supplier Development.
“This new name more accurately reflects our mission to support, grow, and build capacity among our supplier base, beyond focusing solely on diversity,” read a memo regarding the supplier diversity office.
In Pinellas, Commissioners René Flowers, Chris Scherer and Brian Scott said the county has made no changesrelated to pushes against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“The county has largely been unaffected,” Scott said, “as it never had DEI requirements or preferences in hiring, performance evaluation, retention, promotion or contracting.”
Times staff writer Colleen Wright contributed to this report.