In December 2012, Pittsburgh City Council authorized the creation of a Department of Equal Opportunity, a director-level department that would report directly to the mayor on the city’s actual hiring numbers for minority contractors.
The legislation, sponsored by city Councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess, came in response to a New Pittsburgh Courier article revealing the Equal Opportunity Review Commission’s 2011 Contracting Report had several minority contractors listed as receiving millions in contracts that they never did.
Late Review Commission Director Phil Petite said at the time he recorded the minority participation plans submitted to the commission by contractors working with the city or its authorities. Recording the actual utilization, he said was the responsibility of those departments or authorities.
“There is no comprehensive report of utilization by the city and its authorities,” he said.
The new department was supposed to fix that. Council also approved companion legislation submitted by Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle to spend $250,000 on a disparity study to get an accurate assessment of minority businesses in Pittsburgh. The last such study was conducted after the 2000 census and cannot be used to set contracting participation goals.
So, where is the department, and where is the study? As to the former, according to Mayor Bill Peduto’s operating budget, released Sept. 22, it doesn’t exist—the allocation for the EEOC is blank from 2014-2019.
As to the latter, Lavelle’s chief of staff, Dan Wood, said the disparity study “never happened.” He had no explanation as to why.
Tim McNulty, spokesman for the mayor, said the EEOC’s functions were moved to the Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment in the Mayor’s office.
According to the budget, the former Department of Equal Opportunity and Review has been moved to the Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment. All of the functions, responsibilities, and staff of the former Department of EORC will now be housed within the Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment.
Accordingly, that office is slated to see a $233,000 increase in 2015. However, there is no money allocated for an EORC Director though the legislation creating the department called for an annual salary of between $70,000 and $90,000. Indeed, the position is listed “as needed” in the budget.
Valerie McDonald Roberts said when Petite died he was not replaced.
“There is also a manager position that is not filled. There is an administrator, Dawn DeFelice Jakomas, off on extended medical leave. And we had another clerk who died,” she said. “So we have two people in an office that’s supposed to have five.”
She said currently two clerks are doing contract review and follow-up. As for the unfilled directorship that is budgeted at $0?
“That is something the mayor is going to have to address,” said Roberts. “It’s under his office because he considers it important. He wants it to be outcomes-based. The lack of the administrator is ‘an ongoing discussion.’ The budget reflects fiscal restraint; it doesn’t infer that minority contracting will be a secondary consideration.”
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
