This year’s General Assembly session ended without changes to the state’s Minority Business Enterprise program, despite a $500,000 study that identified a host of problems.
Tomás Ávila, who oversees the program as associate director for the R.I. Office of Diversity, Equity and Opportunity, nonetheless told PBN he sees improvements in compliance and growing support in both government agencies and the business community.
That’s good news, as the state embarks on an estimated $1.3 billion in school construction that should generate more than $100 million for minority businesses.
But no amount of networking by Mr. Ávila, or promises by others to do better, can overcome fundamental flaws in how a program is managed.
One of the program’s most glaring failures has been the lack of tracking of demographics of minority subcontractors, who in fiscal 2020 received nearly $50 million in payments. Mr. Ávila, a Latino community leader who took on program oversight last August, thinks that problem may finally be fixed when a new state bid-tracking system comes online next year.
But a thornier issue identified by the state-funded study is a need for better enforcement of penalties for contractors who fail to meet the 10% minority contracting requirement.
Mr. Ávila says the problem doesn’t require a legislative fix, just a willingness by the state director of administration to enforce state law to punish contractors who don’t comply.
For the program to work, violators must be punished. If the state won’t do that, then lawmakers and the attorney general’s office need to find out why.
