Restler questions Garner on FY25 decline in MWBE prime contract value
Restler acknowledges the Adams administration's MWBE contracting gains but asks why MWBE value share fell from 17% in FY24 to 8% in FY25. He asks Garner to evaluate overall performance and explain the significant decline.
Councilmember Frias is going to let me know if she chooses to jump in at her discretion, because once I get going, I just get going.
So thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Chief Garner, for your testimony.
We really appreciate you being with us today.
And, you know, I'll just say for a moment, I think that the Adams administration prioritized this issue and had a success in engaging in
contracting with more MWB firms.
And there aren't many nice things I say about the Adams administration, so that's as close as I'll get to a compliment, and now move forward.
But I do want to recognize that sincerely.
I know it's not easy.
I just, I want to come back to some data to just kind of ground us because you were using some data in your presentation, in your testimony.
I had some data points that I referenced in my opening.
You know, at a super high level, in FY25, the city had a contracting budget of about $46 billion, and MWBEs received $2.44 billion of that funds, about 5% of the total contract spend.
For the last few years, that percent has remained stagnant.
MWB growth.
has not kept pace with the growth of city contracting, which has increased.
Looking at just the 40% of contracts that are subject to Local Law 174 goals, or Local Law 1 as you reference it in your testimony, the value share of prime contracts going to MWEs declined significantly from
about 17% in FY24 to about 8% in FY25, about half as much.
How do you evaluate this overall performance?
What was the cause of the significant decline from FY24 to FY25?
Just at a high level, and then we can go into more specifics.