Excerpt from Mayor Nutter’s Announcement on 2/8/10. Visit OEO for more information.

Goal: By July 2011, we’re aiming to increase the participation rate of DBEs in city contracts from the current level of -18% to at least 25%, a level we must sustain and surpass in the following years.

OEO staff will work with the procurement and contract staff across all departments throughout city government, helping them craft departmental contracting goals, designing contracts that encourage small business participation and tracking actual payments to the small business subcontractors.

In the past, a city department could trigger a non-competitively bid service contract without OEO involvement. We’re now changing the automated contract information system to make sure that OEO review is an early checkpoint in the contracting process.

Contractor Requirements: And we’re also working on a comprehensive and tough contract enforcement system so that prime contractors will understand without question how serious we are about dramatically increasing DBE participation in city contracting.

The city will publish its contracting goals department by department and OEO will engage in oversight to make sure we achieve them. City managers and commissioners will be held accountable to their deputy mayors, the Managing Dir., other Cabinet officers and ultimately me.

Prompt Payment: Many small businesses with minimal cash reserves depend on prompt payment from their prime contractors. A slow down can literally mean bankruptcy. OEO has been advocating for these small firms.

Union Requirements: I call upon the trade unions to work more aggressively on the goals set out by the Mayor’s Advisory Commission on Construction Industry Diversity. Some unions have made real efforts and been sincere in trying to achieve diversity; others have a long way to go.

I’m calling on the construction unions to move beyond verbal support by taking concrete actions to show that they are welcoming to minorities and women. We must move from talk  to training.

For example, testing locations should be that much more convenient as well as prep courses. Why not work out arrangements with Community College of Phila and other higher education institutions right here in Phila, in our neighborhoods?

Why not work with the Black clergy, the Hispanic clergy and other communities of faith to host seminars on the construction industry?

And why not set up training sites at convenient Center City and N. Phila locations?