Are All Businesses Getting Fair Shake? City Study in Final Phases

By Abby Baker

The City of St. Petersburg may be making some changes in how it contracts with businesses.

For the past two years, the city has contracted with Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd. to conduct a study that will determine if there have been greater challenges for certain business owners doing business with the city.

Officially, the city website reads, “The disparity study will identify challenges for minority- and womenowned businesses in doing business with the City of St. Petersburg.”

“It’s obvious there is a disparity,” said Erik Smith, the owner of Inclusivity, LLC, a Black-owned consulting organization in St. Petersburg. “Very few minority-owned businesses can get contracts with the city.”

This series of surveys and interviews focuses exclusively on minorityand women-owned companies, and could potentially lead to a cityrun enterprise program specifically created to assist business owners depending on the results.

“Hopefully this will trigger a way marginalized communities can get a minority inclusivity program,” Smith said. “There needs to be a space for that.”

According to project manager Jessica Eilerman, the analysis will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

“It was time the city started having a conversation with the community and seeing where any issues lie,” Eilerman said. “It’s been 20 years since the last study.”

The city’s last disparity study led to the creation of the Small Business Enterprises program.

Mason Tillan, a California-based disparity study consultant, is looking at minority-owned business contracts granted by the city of St. Petersburg from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2018.

The city wants to see how many women-owned and minority-owned businesses were able to bid on city contracts in that time period.

The three types of businesses being considered are construction, professional services, and goods and services.

According to Eilerman, a majority of this analysis was completed via a community survey that was closed this month.

“We are moving along pretty well,” Eilerman said. “It is looking like the end of April or beginning of May that we will have our final report.”

For more information visit stpete. org/with_the_city/disparity_ study.php.

City of St Petersburg