At a July 24 Boston City Council committee hearing, procurement, supplier diversity and auditing staff presented an overview of citywide tools and steps meant to expand vendor participation by local, women‑owned and BIPOC‑owned businesses.

Procurement staff said the department expanded vendor support after the FY24 budget increased staffing. The vendor support team fields roughly "1,300 requests a month for support from vendors," procurement staff told the committee, and the department added analysts who specialize in services contracts and provide training to city staff. Staff also described a new procurement training program that has already trained more than 100 city employees in eight‑hour sessions to improve procurement and payment practices.

The administration described technical and reporting advances it says make the process more transparent. Procurement and supplier‑diversity staff jointly launched a public Citi contracting dashboard (boston.gov/equitable-procurement) and post raw contracting data on the city’s Analyze Boston open data portal; the dashboard is updated quarterly. Staff also highlighted the Inclusive Quote Contract (IQC) process, authorized by a 2022 home‑rule petition and implemented in 2023, allowing departments to solicit quotes from certified firms for purchases up to $250,000; procurement reported 285 IQC awards totaling about $3.7 million in 2025.

To strengthen vendor capacity, the administration described the ARPA‑funded SCALE program — grants of up to $200,000 awarded to 27 businesses designed to increase capacity so firms can compete for larger city contracts — and a project‑level supplier‑diversity advisory group and community contract opportunity fairs held in Roxbury and Dorchester.

City auditing staff described the payment and warrant process: the auditor’s office processes roughly 3,300 payments per week totaling about $46 million. Officials said delays most commonly result from incomplete department paperwork, and they emphasized training and documentation as fixes. Procurement said it now must approve major contracts and receives advance notice of large opportunities, which permits more targeted outreach to certified vendors.

Several councilors and community witnesses welcomed the tools but urged additional improvements: earlier notice of opportunities; clearer, less legalistic RFP language; routine inclusion of scoring criteria that rewards subcontracting with certified MWBEs; and department‑wide standardization of procurement practices. Colette Phillips, a community leader whose written remarks were submitted to the record, recommended consistent procurement rules across departments, stronger oversight of organizations receiving public funds, and targets that increase participation by BIPOC‑owned firms.

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Procurement leaders invited feedback on the dashboard and said they would follow up on committee requests. Councilors asked for additional documentation and signaled interest in partnering with procurement to refine RFP language, outreach and scoring criteria to increase certified business participation.