Boston must attract more diverse suppliers to its city contracts

Over the last four decades, Boston has become a much more racially and ethnically diverse place. But the City of Boston's limited success in attracting more diverse suppliers to city contracts does not reflect that diversity.

As we noted back in June of this year: Boston awarded less than 1 percent of $664 million in government work to diverse companies in 2018. This is welcome news this week from the City of Boston, but City of Boston efforts must translate into impact.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration is stepping up its efforts to open up more opportunities for City Hall business to women- and minority-owned contractors to help address historically low diversity among the city’s mix of suppliers.

Walsh announced an executive order on Friday that included a number of key steps: training for employees and departments that handle procurement, requiring employees to verify they’ve used a city-managed procurement database when soliciting bids, and mandating that diverse contracting be considered at the start of the budget process every year.

And the administration plans to improve access to its databases to make it easier for minority- and women-owned businesses to find opportunities, and for city employees to more quickly identify potential bidders.