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Lack of data stalls county minority contract reviewChicago Sun-TimesJuly 6, 2005By Steve PattersonCook County officials were criticized Tuesday by an expert they hired to analyze how minority participation can be increased on construction projects. The county has no computerized list showing which firms have worked on projects over the years -- substantially slowing efforts to build an argument in favor of mandating minority participation. "The lack of electronic record keeping is a huge problem," attorney Colette Holt told a county board committee. The county once required that 40 percent of all work on construction projects go to minority-owned firms, but a federal judge threw out the requirement in 2001. In 2003, just $4 million of the $57 million doled out for county construction jobs went to minority-owned firms. Hiring requirement While critics say this shows discrimination, Holt said the effort to back that up with examples -- how many Hispanic-owned plumbers got work, for example -- has been slowed by the paper trail. Most governments, she said, fail to electronically collect such data. "If the county doesn't do anything else, it needs to get itself a solid software package" to easily compare data, she said. She told the board she should be ready this summer to present a plan that would allow for an interim hiring requirement. That plan would include all minority groups, she said, unlike the city plan, which excludes Asian-American-owned firms. A long-range plan, she said, must include enough examples from contractors that it could be considered a reasonable sample of the county population -- examples the county isn't collecting yet. Also Tuesday, the board took no action on a request from Commissioner Mike Quigley to privatize the county's process of certifying minority-owned firms. The county now has 13 employees verifying the authenticity of some 900 companies.
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