Governor Corzine Opens Supplier Diversity Office, Unlocking Economic Opportunity for Women and Minority-Owned Businesses

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

July 07, 2008

Contact: Sean Darcy
Jim Gardner
609-777-2600


TRENTON - Underscoring a continuing commitment to promote entrepreneurship and enhance equity in procurement and employment opportunity, Governor Jon S. Corzine today celebrated the opening of the State Office of  Supplier Diversity. The office was established by the Governor in January of this year and is a one-stop shopping destination where small, minority and women-owned business enterprises can receive training, mentoring and information on contracting opportunities in both government and private industry.  

“Small businesses are the very fabric of New Jersey’s industries and communities,” said Governor Corzine, noting that about 98 percent of all businesses are small businesses.  “If we want to grow New Jersey’s economy, we have to remove impediments that prevent  women and minority-owned businesses from developing and prospering.  Today, we raise the bar in the effort to promote minority- and women-owned small businesses throughout New Jersey.”

   “The Office of Supplier Diversity is a demonstrative, working example of how the Corzine Administration is putting economic develop tools directly into the hands of the businesses that need them in New Jersey,” said Treasurer David Rousseau.

  Sandy Davis, Office Director noted: “Since being formed in January, we have provided information and assistance to hundreds of businesses through workshops, conferences networking, and seminars.  Today’s grand opening reinforces that the office is open for business, and open to business,” she said.

  The Office is an outgrowth of Governor Corzine’s Executive Order No. 34, which created the Division of Minority and Women Business Development and directed it to comprehensively track and monitor State contract utilization among minority and women owned business enterprises (MWBE) – a first for New Jersey.  Over the last 18 months, the division has been developing a strategic reporting system to collect refined information quarterly from 109 State agencies, authorities, commissions, colleges and universities.

   “We approach this responsibility by building a reporting system from scratch,” said Nina Moseley Senior Director of the Division of Minority and Women Business Development. “We worked closely with MWBE liaisons statewide to develop uniform elements and partnered with the Office of Information Technology to tie all of the data resources together.  We will continue to make refinements to capture additional business participation among subcontractors, but we have made great progress in a short period of time.”

  The report, which tracks activity in the last quarter of 2007, marks the first time that 100 percent of the 95 require reporting agencies submitted reliable, uniform data. Among the findings:

   

Minorities and women combined received 7.9 percent of all payments on prime  contracts;  

Minority vendors (both males and female) received payments of $25.4 million, or 2.9 percent of the total $851 million in payments;  

Non-minority women vendors received $42.3 million, or 5 percent of payments;  

The remaining 92.1 percent were recorded by vendors not classified as minority or women-owned;  

The fourth quarter results compare favorably to private industry, other states that track this information, and the nationwide average. According to Diversity Inc. Magazine, the top 50 companies for Supplier Diversity in 2008 awarded 9 percent of their prime contractor procurement activity to MWBEs, and the nationwide average was 2 percent. Among peer states, New Jersey’s participation ranks comparably to that of Virginia’s (8.6 percent for both prime and subcontractors) for the same quarter .

  “This is a striking improvement from previous estimates and deserves recognition—yet we still have a tremendous amount of work ahead—which makes the Office of Supplier Diversity absolutely critical,” Governor Corzine said. “We are witnessing advances in equity, but minority and women-owned firms account for 20 percent and 28 percent of the small businesses in the state, respectively—so eight percent is a small fraction of the prime contract payments that they should be reaping.”

  A copy of this report is available at www. http://www.state.nj.us/njbusiness/contracting/   Today’s event also highlighted the Corzine Administration efforts to use the regulatory process to enhance employment opportunities for women and minorities in public contracting.  Among the proposed changes, New Jersey would:  

Ensure that every public contract offers a fair chance for qualified minorities and women to be employed;  

Provide an on-going pool of funding for the construction trades training program for minorities and women (NJ Build) which is administered by the Department of Labor;  

Require contractors and bidders on State contracts  to make good faith efforts to hire minorities and women on public contracts;  

Reiterate that contracting agencies must comply with any regulations promulgated by the Division of Contract Compliance and EEO in Public Contracts in order to assist with EEO/AA compliance and enforcement efforts;  

“These amendments help to ensure that minorities and women have a equal access to employment on public contracts through policy changes that are backed by regulatory reform,” said Deirdre Webster Cobb, Director of the Division of Contract Compliance and Equal Opportunity in Public Contracting.