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Lake County purchasing manager: supplier‑diversity spend rising; reverse vendor fair set for March 17
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Summary
Lake County purchasing manager Yvette Alberon told the committee the county is increasing spend with diversity‑classified vendors, uses b2gnow to track classifications, added 815 vendor registrations this year (9,772 total), and will partner on a reverse vendor fair at College of DuPage on March 17.
Yvette Alberon, Lake County purchasing manager, presented an update on the county’s supplier‑diversity program and procurement outreach.
Alberon said a 2022 public act requires certain taxing districts to collect and publish vendor demographic information; Lake County uses a third‑party platform (b2gnow) to match spend from its purchasing system against certified diversity databases and to generate analytics. "We use this to maintain compliance with the act," Alberon said.
She told the committee the county is tracking classifications such as women‑owned, veteran‑owned, minority‑owned and disadvantaged business enterprises across roughly three fiscal years of data. Alberon said women‑owned business enterprise spend is the category showing the biggest impact in the county’s current procurement profile.
On outreach, Alberon said the purchasing division runs 60–80 new procurements annually and that this year the county added 815 vendor registrations for a total of 9,772 vendors in its system. To increase vendor engagement, she said the county will participate in a "reverse vendor fair" at College of DuPage on March 17 with more than 200 diverse vendors preregistered; the format places county procurement staff at tables for short meetings with suppliers about upcoming procurements.
Committee members asked whether the College of Lake County is participating. Alberon said CLC used to host a procurement technical assistance center but many such functions were consolidated regionally and the College of DuPage now hosts a regional resource; Assistant County Administrator Ruthann Hall confirmed that consolidation explains the regional role.
Alberon noted that the county currently tracks general‑contractor spend but cannot yet track subcontractor spend; she said a new ERP is expected to improve visibility into subcontractor relationships.
The committee thanked Alberon for the update; there were no formal votes related to procurement at the meeting.
