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Affirmative action office details workshops, MWBE results and seeks council help on contract goals
Summary
The city's affirmative action office described outreach and training for minority- and women-owned businesses, presented contract participation data from 2024, and asked the council to help increase MWBE participation and to consider policy changes including raising small-purchase thresholds.
Schenectady’s Office of Affirmative Action updated council members on training, certification and contracting efforts aimed at increasing participation by minority- and women-owned businesses.
Affirmative action staff told councilors they have partnered with SUNY Schenectady, the Small Business Development Center, the SBA and other agencies to run workshops on bidding, bonding and certification. The office described a mix of recruitment, technical-assistance and mentoring efforts intended to increase capacity among small firms so they can bid competitively on municipal contracts.
The report included a breakdown of 2024 contract awards and the share received by MWBE firms. Staff said the city’s MWBE participation percentages lag the council’s stated 30% goal and noted a disparity between women-owned and minority-owned shares. Councilors and staff discussed reasons the percentages remain low, including limited bonding and access to capital and firms' capacity to perform on larger contracts.
Affirmative action staff said they routinely review utilization plans; those plans are incorporated into contracts and the office monitors efforts by prime contractors to secure MWBE subcontractors. Councilors asked for more granular reporting: one request was to show ‘contract value awarded’ next to ‘payments received to date’ for each MWBE subcontract to expose any delta between award and actual payment. The office committed to providing that reconciliation.
Council members also discussed program design and enforcement tools. Staff said waiver forms and utilization plans are used in the procurement process and described pre-bid outreach to encourage MWBE participation. Councilors proposed adding a column to bidding summaries to indicate whether a bidder made a good-faith MWBE effort so councilors can consider that when awarding contracts.
Staff proposed raising the small-purchase exemption threshold (the dollar level below which different procurement rules apply) from current levels toward $500,000 to allow more small firms to participate in mid-size work. Councilors asked the affirmative action office to work with the law department and purchasing/policy staff to draft recommended language for the procurement policy and to return with proposed purchasing-policy changes for the next committee review.
Officials also discussed certified payroll submission and recommended that certified payroll be filed electronically as a contract requirement. Councilors asked staff to work with law and finance to draft contract language to require electronic certified payroll filings and to add that requirement to the purchasing policy when it is updated.
The office said it will provide follow-up materials to the council including: (1) a reconciliation that shows awarded contract value versus payments actually received for MWBE firms; (2) suggested purchasing-policy language (including certified-payroll requirements); and (3) recommended threshold changes for council review.
