The City of Seattle’s 2023-24 budget is $7.4 billion, by far the largest municipal government budget in the northwest. To date, many Tabor 100 members have enjoyed contracting opportunities with the city, but many have not. In an effort to ensure that BIPOC and women-owned businesses have equitable opportunities to pursue city contracts, Seattle launched its Women and Minority (WMBE) Business Advisory Committee in 2019.
While the City WMBE program boasts a doubling of WMBE firms receiving purchasing and consulting contracts over the last 10 years, city leaders created the WMBE Advisory Committee to increase opportunities for minority and women-owned firms in city contracting. Committee members are well-known, experienced and knowledgeable advocates for minority and women-owned businesses in King County and beyond. Mayor Jenny Durkan established the committee to “provide guidance and feedback on the city’s practices in support of equity, inclusion and participation of women-and minority-owned businesses in City of Seattle contracts.”
Current Mayor Harrell, who was City Council President at the time of the committee’s creation, praised the new committee and declared “I envision Seattle to be a national model for best practices for contracting equity program(s).” Of course, Harrell had the opportunity in 2021 to further the work of the committee as Seattle’s newly elected Mayor.
Harrell, a long-time champion of minority and women owned businesses, both on the Council and in his private life, expressed to committee members, his personal commitment to their work and directed them to present recommendations during his first full year as Mayor, 2022. In the midst of a Disparity Study, which the Mayor had endorsed previously and urged to continue, the WMBE Advisory Committee met regularly, analyzing city contracting practices to make recommendations for improvement. In May 2022, the WMBE committee recommended to Harrell and others in City leadership, eight actions to improve City of Seattle BIPOC and women-owned business usage in every area of city contracting. The committee worked with Seattle’s WMBE Advisors, WMBE businesses and WMBE experts outside of the city, to fashion its recommendations and meet the 2022 timeline:
1. Quarterly educational meetings for WMBE Advisors (each city Department has at least one Advisor) where they are able to meet internally and with other municipalities and discuss strategies to increase WMBE utilization.
2. City WMBE Advisors should select three WMBE businesses they have worked with and highlight their businesses to different City departments as a way of advertising the businesses.
3. Ensure that prioritizing WMBE goals is an encouraged component of relevant City positions/job descriptions
4. Reevaluate the technical assistance provided to WMBE businesses
5. Establish an Oversight Task Force to handle WMBE complaints received by the City
6. Implement a process to ensure sourcing and procurement is fair, equitable and inclusive at every level
7. Establish and implement metrics to solidify accountable performance within the City
8. Check-ins with WMBE Advisors and City Project Managers to discuss upcoming procurement opportunities.
The city has committed itself to carrying out the recommendations and the WMBE Committee members intend to work with City Departments to ensure the recommendations are carried out and serve as a framework for the future. The Committee will also monitor a city Disparity Study which will provide additional insight into the disparities that exist for minority and women-owned firms and provide some additional recommendations to address them.
Lastly, the City of Seattle received a grant of up to $1 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies to begin a “transformation” of its procurement process, focused on equity and performance which launched in August 2022. The City’s Facilities and Administrative Services (FAS) Department is charged with leading this work, in partnership with the City’s Office ofInnovation and Performance and the Harvard Kennedy School of government Performance Lab (GPL). The WMBE Advisory Committee anticipates working with the city and GPL to ensure that equity is a core focus of the work revamping procurement.
Tabor 100’s CEO and President, Ollie Garrett, serves on the committee and has helped usher many of the recommendations in the report. “This is just the beginning. We plan to create, monitor and implement these and other actions aimed at increasing minority and women-owned business participation with city contracts,” Ollie declared. “We want to share equitably in the City’s seven-billion-dollar budget.”
