Nassau County study kept from public finds minority-owned businesses locked out of contracts

Women and business owners of color got fewer than 10%  of government contracts in Nassau County, according to a report showing stark disparities that's been  withheld from public view for nearly a year. 

 The 249-page report by Mason Tillman and Associates, obtained by Newsday, looked at vendor contracts awarded from 2015 to 2019. It is the county’s most comprehensive study of Nassau’s procurement process in decades.

None of the county's most lucrative construction contracts — those valued between $10,000 and $2.2 million — went to companies owned by Black people, despite those businesses representing 9.45% of identified construction firms available to receive that type of contract. Companies owned by Caucasian men, however, received 91% of those contracts.

Companies owned by Caucasian women represented 23% of the available businesses and saw 2.79% of those construction contracts; Asian American-owned firms represented 14.6% and received 4.6% of the construction contracts; Hispanic American-owned firms represented 11% and received 1.4% of the work, according to the report.

“It’s embarrassing and disappointing that in a 21st century economy, Nassau County thinks this is OK,” said Dan Lloyd, founder and president of Minority Millennials, a group based in Amityville aimed at supporting entrepreneurship and encouraging political engagement among young people of color. “You would think this is a study from 1954.”

Despite the study presented to the administration of County Executive Bruce Blakeman nearly a year ago, little has been done to boost Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises' participation in county vendor contracts, according to a review of legislative bills and interviews with lawmakers.

The administration withheld the study from public view, ignoring legislators and Newsday's multiple requests through 2024, including under the state Freedom of Information Law. Newsday obtained a copy of the report in November. The Oakland-based group drafted a similar study for Suffolk County, which released its report to the public last year, finding more than 95% of professional service contracts went to businesses owned by nonminority males.

Determining access

Both analyses aimed at determining the access of minority-owned, woman-owned, small, local, and veteran businesses in public contracting opportunities. 

Analysts looked at county records, including vendor lists and prime contracts, government certification directories, the list of business owners who registered for disparity study community meetings and business and trade group membership lists and surveys to determine businesses "willing and able" to perform work for Nassau, the report shows.

Republican County Executive Ed Mangano was in office for the first two years and Democrat Laura Curran for the last two years of the four years of contracting analyzed in the study.

Curran, along with former Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, also a Democrat, commissioned the studies for their respective counties. Bellone held a news conference on Dec. 22, 2023, his final days in office, to announce a new task force to address the findings of the Suffolk report.

The last such report was produced in 2003 and analyzed contract awards from 1998 through 2002. Mason Tillman completed both the recent Nassau and Suffolk reports in December 2023.

Blakeman, a Republican, took office in 2022 and has proposed no visible policy initiatives to address the study.

When asked, administration spokesman Chris Boyle told Newsday: "We have reviewed the material data and recommendations and are happy to report that many of the recommendations have already been implemented by the Blakeman administration," but he did not respond to Newsday's questions about what specific steps were taken in the past year to encourage more MWBE participation in the county procurement process and why the county did not release the report when it was ready in December 2023.

Nassau County Legis. Carrié Solages (D-Valley Stream), who wrote a letter to the administration in January 2024 requesting the report's release, called its delay "a tremendous disappointment." 

The 19-member county legislature was provided copies of the report right before an Oct. 7 budget hearing, despite public requests and demands for hearings on the record, Solages said.

“This isn’t just me asking. This is dozens of minority contractors who want to participate in the contracting process and have seen no gains,” Solages said.

Leveling the playing field

The report concludes that the county needs to address barriers for MWBEs such as "burdensome paperwork, excessive bonding and insurance requirements, inaccessibility of County staff, tight submission deadlines, and slow invoice payments."

"Conditions that all favor large, established vendors. The competitors' advantages are reinforced by their social and political connections to County officials," according to the report.

The county awarded 18,933 prime contracts, spending $1.4 billion between Jan. 1, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2019, according to the report. Of those contracts, 594 were for construction totaling about $820 million; 1,658 for personal services totaling about $255 million; and 16,681 were for goods and services totaling about $300 million.

"The study reveals some major systemic issues, and we have done nothing constructive to fix them," said Solages, a ranking member of the county legislature's Minority Affairs Committee.

The findings came as no surprise to Daphne Baptiste, owner of a residential and commercial cleaning business in Valley Stream. 

After she spent late nights spend researching, filling out mounds of paperwork and schooling herself in the language of municipal governments, her business was MWBE-certified in 2022. She thought the move would unlock opportunities on Long Island, but after two years and several unsuccessful bids she still hasn't secured a  contract. 

“One contract could change my entire family," said Baptiste, 36, a single mom from Amityville who owns the Valley Stream business.

Lloyd said the data backs up what contractors and advocates told him for decades. He asserted that the findings point to an ecosystem where the same vendors win county contracts, rewarding a small group of politically connected business owners. He said MWBEs are owned by residents who are paying taxes and despite their best efforts are shut out of the ability to work on infrastructure projects and contribute to enhancing Nassau's quality of life.

“If there’s 0% Black construction contracts, that means the decision-makers and those who have power aren't just turning a blind eye,” Lloyd said. "This report might have been even worse than they [Blakeman administration officials] thought it would be."

Boyle did not respond to Lloyd's accusations. 

Legis. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) in 2017 filed a bill to create a county program that would help minority, women and service-disabled veterans with the credit requirements of the procurement process.

The bill, never considered by the Republican-controlled county legislature, would designate a third-party administrator to assist MWBEs in lending and collateral.

Bynoe, who will begin her first term in the state Senate in January, said she would consider refiling the resolution.

The Blakeman administration "sat" on the report for a year, she said, indicating a lack of motivation on an issue that will require a lot of hard work.

"It comes down to policy changes. It comes down to making sure we have a more efficient payment system. Making sure there are opportunities for individuals to have more interaction with the departments they are looking to procure," Bynoe said. "They are not taking this seriously."

Boyle did not respond to claims the administration is not taking the report seriously.

By Candice Ferrette

candice.ferrette@newsday.comcandiceferrette

Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.