Cleveland’s Office of Equal Opportunity reports $92 million in diverse commitments from 19 community benefits agreements

Tyson Mitchell, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, told the Cleveland City Council Workforce Committee on the workforce committee’s agenda that his office certified 847 companies in its database and signed 19 community benefits agreements in 2024 representing about $503,000,000 in total project cost.

The community benefits agreements, Mitchell said, accounted for $285,000,000 in hard construction cost and roughly $43,000,000 of city financial incentives (including tax increment financing, grants, loans, tax abatements and city-funded infrastructure). He said those 2024 CBAs include $92,000,000 in committed diverse spend: $44,000,000 to minority business enterprises (MBE), $24,000,000 to female business enterprises (FBE) and $24,000,000 to Cleveland small businesses (CSB).

"OEO's work falls into 4 major categories — certifications, bid and proposal evaluations, contract compliance, and the wonderful community benefits agreements that have been added," Mitchell said. He also highlighted growth in certifications year over year: "in 23, we had 305 MBEs, and in 24, we have 444," and noted 54 Hispanic-owned firms counted in 2024 compared with 41 in 2023.

Why it matters: Council members pressed OEO about whether the city is turning those commitments into broader supplier growth and how the office will respond to recent court decisions affecting race- or gender-based goals. Committee members emphasized that the CBAs and related programs are intended to move businesses from subcontractors to prime roles, expand workforce pipelines and keep public investment local.

Monitoring, penalties and software costs

Mitchell described the office’s monitoring work for Section 187 and Section 188 (the Fannie Lewis law) and said OEO uses B2GNow and an LCP tracker to track compliance. He said software and monitoring costs are rising with the volume of contracts and estimated the software budget…