§ 28-3. Legislative findings and policy.

(a) Findings.

(1) The Mayor and City Council makes the findings contained in this subsection, on full consideration of:

(i) the extensive findings made by an independent task force prior to the enactment of Ordinance 90-610;

(ii) the evidence of significant levels of utilization disparity identified by the 2000 Disparity Study;

(iii) hearings held by the City Council;

(iv) the extensive findings of the 2022 Disparity Study, "The State of Minority and Women-Owned Business enterprise: Evidence from Baltimore";

(v) the findings of the City Council that the prevalence of contract awards to large, non-local, businesses has significantly contributed to underutilization of minority and women's business enterprises; and

(vi) all other relevant facts.

(2) Past discrimination in the City's contracting process by prime contractors against minority and women's business enterprises has resulted in significant underutilization of minority and women's business enterprises in contracts awarded by the City of Baltimore. As determined by the 2022 Disparity Study, this disparity has been persistent, pervasive, and statistically significant based on available vendor data.

(3) This discrimination has occurred in the major City contracting markets (construction, commodities, architectural and engineering, and services), with the effect of significant underutilization of minority and women's business enterprises.

(4) The provisions of this subtitle are necessary to overcome the effects of past discrimination and to prevent ongoing discrimination in the City's contracting process, while assuring that high quality goods and services are obtained through the competitive bidding process.

(5) A general objective of this subtitle is to provide a narrowly tailored remedy to ongoing effects of past discrimination, an objective that is advanced by:

(i) setting minority and women's business enterprise goals that are flexible and rationally related to the disparity identified in the City's contracting markets;

(ii) instituting race- and gender-neutral remedies, including a Small Local Business Enterprise Program, in conjunction with the narrowly tailored administration of the MBE/WBE Program;

(iii) setting goals on a contract-by-contract basis;

(iv) providing criminal penalties for fraudulent misuse of this subtitle;

(v) requiring regular review of the necessity for this subtitle;

(vi) limiting those minority and women's businesses that qualify for certification under this subtitle to those located in the Baltimore City Market Area;

(vii) requiring regular review of the categories included in the definition of minority- group members; and

(viii) providing for post-bid submission of required information about minority and women's business enterprises as well as other subcontractors.

(b) Policy.

It is the policy of the City of Baltimore to promote equal business opportunity in the City's contracting process by encouraging full and equitable participation by minority and women's business enterprises in the provision of goods and services to the City on a contractual basis.