By Griffin Bass
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby has introduced legislation designed to help minority- and women-owned businesses more easily compete for city contracts.
Mosby said in a statement and an accompanying video that another goal of the bill submitted to the City Council this week is to ensure that Baltimore-based businesses are given a fair shot at winning city contracts for infrastructure work and other city projects.
Mosby said the legislation is needed because institutional inequities have slowed and stunted the growth of minority- and women-owned businesses in Baltimore.
“Our legislation will give local companies a better chance at competing for city contracts – from pouring concrete and laying carpet to building websites and supplying uniforms,” Mosby said.
“The Baltimore Business Inclusion and Empowerment Legislative Package” is also sponsored by Councilmembers Kristerfer Burnett, D-District 8, and Antonio Glover, D-District 13.
“This bill does a really good job of helping the city get away from the sole-source contracts that continue to perpetuate inequities in our large-dollar projects,” Burnett said at Monday’s council meeting. “We’ve got to give an equal shot to businesses based in Baltimore.”
Mosby said the lawmakers will continue research to find additional techniques for improving the contracting process for minority- and women-owned businesses.
“Too often contracts are being awarded to the same companies over and over again,” Mosby said. “This means true competition is not taking place at the level that we believe it should be. Too many up-and-coming businesses and smaller businesses are excluded from the process.”
The bill requires contractors to report how many of their workers are Baltimore residents while also requiring disclosure of previous contracts that came in on time and at budget. The package creates penalties for those that fail to meet disclosure requirements.
The package will directly address some of the hurdles that small business owners face when trying to secure city work.
“The contracting world has a lot of loopholes, and it becomes frustrating for a small business when you are putting yourself out there to compete and many times you don’t feel like you have a fair chance at winning,” Tiffinie Carroll, a local small business owner, told WMAR-TV.