Broward GOP Leaders: Review County Policies
Broward GOP Leaders: Review County Policies
BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com
Applauding Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to stop setting aside state contracts
for
minorities and women, the Broward County Republican Party on
Wednesday
urged the county to review its affirmative action policies.
The Republican governor announced Tuesday a sweeping proposal
to eliminate
``legally suspect'' racial and gender set-asides as well as race-based
university
admissions.
In a news release on Wednesday, Broward Republican Party Chairman
Ed
Pozzuoli said, ``Let's use this opportunity as a call for Broward
County to fully
review its procurement process and any distinction purely based
on a minor
characteristic. Judgments and distinctions must be made on the
quality of the
person or company.''
But local officials say racial and gender set-asides have been
abandoned over the
past few years in favor of contract goals for participation by
minorities and women.
```We've gotten away from preferences based on race and gender,''
said County
Commissioner John Rodstrom.
Programs that help minority- and women-owned firms obtain public
contracts in
Broward have been in place since the mid-1980s. Part of those
programs involved
reserving certain contracts for minorities and women.
Those set-asides were abolished in recent years following two
important court
rulings, said Phyllis Korab, the county's director of equal opportunities.
In 1989,
the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Richmond, Va., law that
reserved 30
percent of contracting dollars for minority companies. And in
1996, U.S. District
Judge Kenneth Ryskamp barred set-aside programs in Miami-Dade
County on the
grounds that the local government did not prove that discrimination
existed.
Currently, Broward County and the school district ask general
contractors to give
certain percentages of work to women and minorities.
``Our program is based on a good-faith effort,'' Korab said. ``Nothing
prevents a
company who doesn't reach goals from competing for other contracts.''
Meeting the goals has proved elusive. Of the $140 million in contract
work in fiscal
year 1998 that the county had hoped would go to women and minorities,
only $42
million was awarded. At the school district, which aims to give
22 percent of all
contracts to women and minorities, less than 10 percent was awarded
last year.
``We've fallen short, and we have to come up with innovative ways
to increase
minority participation without being taken to court,'' said Dorsey
Miller, the
district's director of diversity and equal opportunities.
The county is also mulling changes but is waiting for the results
of a $421,000
study by Tallahassee-based MGT of America. If that review reveals
discrimination
in public contracts, the county would have legal grounds to consider
reviving
set-asides, Korab said.
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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu