So, why doesn’t Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) have goals for using minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses?
Two weeks ago, I asked IPS — their administration and board — what the district’s “goals” are for using MBEs, WNBEs and VBEs and was shocked to learn IPS has never set any type of goals for MBE/WBE businesses.
The district is 53.3 percent minority and 51.2 percent women. The district is home to 15,167 veterans. IPS not only educates 30,000 students, it spends multi-millions on products, goods and services.
In lengthy, overly wordy answers to my questions on this issue, IPS’ board and administration claim they have “A (system-wide) policy to increase business opportunities for Minority and Women Business Enterprises (MBE/WBE), and a commitment to maximize minority and women business participation through the development of mutually beneficial relationships with these enterprises.”
In 2014, IPS spent 10.72 percent of “eligible expenditures” with MBE/WBE businesses. This year, through Oct. 5, IPS spent 11.83 percent with such businesses.
The City of Indianapolis’ MBE goals are 15 percent, and WBE goals are 8 percent — a combined 23 percent. Using the city as a standard, IPS’ usage of minority and women-owned businesses is abysmal.
I asked top IPS leadership whether they considered their current level of MBE/WBE business usage as “acceptable.” In a circular, linguistically awkward answer, IPS basically wouldn’t answer the question.
If IPS thinks 11 percent to 12 percent minority utilization is acceptable in a minority-majority district, they’re more delusional than I thought!
I’m most angry (and our Black community should be as well) that IPS’ board and administration deliberately refused to answer my simple, direct question. Making excuses about it and refusing to even say whether it’s acceptable is a cop-out. Either IPS believes in minority and women business inclusion or it doesn’t. No middle ground.
I specifically asked each IPS board member and Supt. Dr. Lewis Ferebee why IPS hasn’t set MBE/WBE goals.
They responded with an overly verbose joint response that basically said they couldn’t afford to spend $100,000 on a “disparity study.” That’s a requirement under several Supreme Court decisions that allows a governmental entity to use data and facts to create goals for utilization of MBE and WBE goals.
IPS’ response is malarkey! IPS can afford the disparity study’s cost, easily.
Fact is, IPS wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly on “studies” and consultants, like spending $200,000 to “study” teacher’s salaries.
IPS is wasting thousands on unneeded administrators. Latest example?
IPS just hired Mayor Greg Ballard’s former Deputy Chief of Staff David Rosenberg, the man who helped create and promote the notorious Vision Fleet, Justice Center and Blue Indy fiascos.
IPS shouldn’t have hired Rosenberg, using his big salary instead to fund the needed disparity study.
IPS defends its tepid record in utilizing MBE/WBE businesses by saying some of their women and minority-owned vendors haven’t been certified by the city or state.
This begs the question of why isn’t IPS working with those businesses to explain the benefits of certification? IPS should want to encourage their pool of vendors who’re minorities and women to be certified, which would open up additional business opportunities for those vendors with governmental entities — city, state, even our state universities.
It doesn’t help that in the past three years IPS’ commitment to doing business with women and minorities has been hampered by lack of leadership.
IPS’ head of supplier diversity, LaVonn Bradley, has only been there a short time. Her predecessor left in 2013.
In its response, IPS claims it’s been visible among the minority and women supplier community. But unlike the city and state, IPS couldn’t tell me when Ms. Bradley or her predecessor had given interviews with the city’s minority media about IPS’ minority supplier efforts.
Unlike other organizations where the person in charge of supplier diversity reports to senior management, at IPS, Ms. Bradley reports to the district’s purchasing agent. Bradley’s position is so unimportant it’s not listed on IPS’ fancy organizational chart on its website.
There’s no evidence that supplier diversity is directly supervised and monitored by either IPS’ chief financial manager and/or superintendent, with board oversight.
I bring all this up because in 2016 the IPS board and administration will OK a major sale of the last virgin property on downtown’s hottest street — Massachusetts Avenue. The sale could create a mega million development of retail, housing and more.
But in the conversations about the sale of what IPS calls the SCIPS property, there’s been no public discussion on the scope of utilization of minority- and women-owned businesses in the project.
In another verbose doublespeak explanation, IPS explained it didn’t include MBE/WBE goals in the proposed SCIPS project because of the lack of that aforementioned disparity study.
IPS claims they have a “committee evaluating the proposals from developers on this transformative project on Mass Avenue.” IPS claims the committee, the Real Estate Advisory Committee, will help set guidelines for MBE/WBE and perhaps veteran-owned business guidelines for the project.
But a list of the committee’s members on IPS’ website doesn’t match the racial and gender diversity (50 percent minority and 38 percent female) IPS warranted to me in their statement.
It’s obvious IPS is clueless on creating workable “goals” to include minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses, which have been mostly shut out of participating in the Massachusetts Avenue downtown boom area until now.
For IPS to claim false ignorance of workable minority business inclusion, and failing to make the investment to create workable goals for such inclusion, is another example of the reform crowd running IPS not giving a damn about educating minority kids, but also not giving a damn about improving the economic viability of minorities in IPS.
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
Five days before the election —Oct. 30 — the candidates for mayor face off in the only radio debate this election year. It’ll be at 2 p.m. as part of a special edition of “Afternoons with Amos” on WTLC-AM (1310). If you’ve got a question you think I should ask, send it to me at the email address below.
See ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
