A new report from the City Comptroller\u2019s Office shows minority- and women-owned business enterprises are being left behind when it comes to securing contract work in the city.<\/p>\n
While the city says it aims to work with MWBEs, the data shows that only 5% of $46 billion in contracts last year \u2014 about $2.4 billion \u2014 went to those businesses. The report also found the average value of MWBE contracts was five times lower than that of noncertified firms.<\/p>\n
The contracts include work ranging from school building renovations to marketing services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that the people who get those contracts reflect the diversity of New York City, and historically, they have not. Women and people of color have been dramatically underrepresented,\u201d Comptroller Mark Levine said.<\/p>\n
The report also found that 65% of all MWBE contracts were registered after their start date, and 35% were registered more than a month late.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a small business, those delays can put you into bankruptcy,\u201d Levine said. \u201cAnd so we also are recommending that the city accelerate payment on the contracts so that minority- and women-owned businesses can take on this work. They can survive financially and compete for this work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levine said reform is necessary to level the playing field for businesses owned by people of color and women. He said many of these firms are small and may not have the financing to take on large contracts, underscoring the need for low\u2011interest financing and other support through small business services.<\/p>\n
At the end of fiscal year 2025, there were 11,382 certified MWBEs, and 2,478 of them entered into a new contract or purchase order with the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can also offer coaching and other support through small business services to help them establish themselves,\u201d Levine said. \u201cNext is making sure when they do get a contract that they are paid on time. We want to make sure that we don\u2019t just keep going back to that same 22% of MWBEs \u2014 that we broaden it out to reach more companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levine said the Mamdani administration has been briefed on the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report reflects the Eric Adams era, and it\u2019s entirely based on the performance last year,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to come back next year with the new report with updated numbers, but it was important for us to have a marker now to compare so we can really evaluate the progress that the new mayor makes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report from the City Comptroller\u2019s Office shows minority- and women-owned business enterprises are being left behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,18907,12722,9,24,63,4799,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-117673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-businesses","10":"tag-local-businesses","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-small-businesses","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}