Minorities, women in Pa. seeing more state contracts

Sharon Smith
The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Robert Frye has been running a part-time cleaning service on the side for several years, but he wants to make his business, Frye Cleaning Service, a full-time operation.

State certification as a minority contractor might help with that.

“It would be a big boost,” said Frye, who was among a dozen people who attended a state contracting workshop this month at Kutztown University’s Small Business Development Center in Harrisburg.

Frye’s timing couldn’t be better. In the last four years, the state has made a push to offer contracting opportunities to more businesses owned by minorities and women.

In January 2003, less than 2 percent of the money spent on state contracts went to companies owned by women and minorities, according to the state Department of General Services.

At the end of fiscal 2006, the department had approved or renewed contracts worth about $510 million, with $42.3 million of that going to women- and minority-owned firms.

The state also has doubled the number of firms certified as eligible to handle state contracts, from 900 four years ago to about 1,800 now, said Usha Hannigan, who gave the presentation for the Department of General Services at the Kutztown University workshop.

Once minority- and women-owned businesses are certified with the state, their contact information is listed in a database maintained by the department. The database is used as a resource by prime contractors and purchasing agents, Hannigan said.

Being listed in the database helps, but business owners must do some work on their own to land state contracts.

“They are going to use this as a marketing tool,” Hannigan said. “No one’s going to give them a contract. It’s just one step to get your name out there.”

Robert Jackson, president and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Central Pennsylvania, sees improvement in the climate for minority- and women-owned businesses to work with the state.

“The opportunity is out there,” he said. “If it wasn’t there, I would be the first one to say because I used to say it all the time.”

The state isn’t just giving contracts to the lowest bidder anymore, Jackson said. Officials are asking firms what their relationships are with minority- and women-owned businesses and whether they’ve used them in the past, he said.

The purpose of the minority- and women-owned business contracting program is so prime contractors and general contractors use minority firms, Jackson said. The idea is that it will create opportunities for such businesses going forward, he said.

“They want those primes and [general contractors] to use minorities all the time,” Jackson said.

But being a minority-owned subcontractor is not without its pitfalls, said John Dunlap, CEO of Integrated Contractors in Harrisburg.

Dunlap had his company certified in 2002. Since then, he has received calls from contractors from as far away as Erie asking if the company can work on a contract.

“We can’t go to Erie,” Dunlap said.

Some companies that have contracts with the state strive to give more work to women- and minority-owned businesses and that leads to such requests, Dunlap said.

“We get hundreds of requests,” he added. “It’s just not in our best interest to respond to them all.”

The requests to work farther from home and the sometimes slow payments he has received from prime contractors have led Dunlap to be more selective when working with other companies on state contracts.

“The commonwealth of Pennsylvania is not our main market as we speak,” he said. “You make out a lot better in the private world.”

Jackson said cases where distant contractors call minority firms from outside their immediate area still occur, but he sees that as more of a supply and demand issue.

“Nine times out of 10 [prime contractors] might not have minority contractors in their town,” he said. “The idea is putting minorities to work.”

Erie County, for example, has 22 minority- and women-owned businesses that are certified with the state, according to the state’s database. Dauphin County has 78 certified minority- and women-owned businesses.

“Most of the [general contractors] and primes are really looking for somebody who can do the job,” Jackson said.

That’s what Frye hopes for if he moves forward with the certification process.

“I’m kind of looking to expand my business,” he said.

(Associated Press)