Compliance News Blog

What’s this you say? They’ve dropped the ball again? Well, what else is new?

Let’s take a good look at who did what to whom.

CSU Long Beach had $58 million worth of contracts for FY 2004-05 and only thought of us to the tune of $192K. or 0.33% DVBE participation. However, CSU Los Angeles had $68 million and did $2.5 million or 3.7% of their business with us. A special kudo goes to those resolute guys and gals soldiering on in CSU LA procurement.

On the other hand why one may ask, is there such a wide disparity?

We could allude to some ostensibly good evidence that there are many in certain procurement divisions who believe the people of the state of California owe an on-going vote of thanks to our mostly unsung disabled vets, but there are others who frankly just don’t give a damn and would rather pull the plug on all DVBE opportunities.

Golly gee, then maybe the situation with CSU Long Beach is just a fluke. Think so? O.K., CSU San Jose did over a fifth of a billion $$ and set aside just $83K. or 0.04% for the guys and gals at the bottom of the totem pole….

However, the Franchise Tax Board spent almost a quarter of a billion $$ and included us in $7.8 million or 3.7% of their contracts.

A very hearty accolade therefore, to those good joes at FTB.

But CalPoly San Luis Obispo had almost $300 million to spend and ended up giving us just 0.02% or $47K. of the pie.

Gosh, how did DGS do then, we should query? They had $319 million in the kitty and gave us $6.1 million or only 1.93% of the take. And these are the folks heading up the lead agency for the entire kit n’ kaboodle?

These are also those very same people that appear to talk the talk but just quite can’t walk the walk….

Ah, but what about the Dept. of Corrections? They always have a ton of bucks to spend. DOC spent almost three quarters of a billion $$ and remembered us with practically $16 million or 2.14%. They’re beginning to close in on the magic three per cent.

But they are a heckuva lot closer than most, therefore a significant amount of kudo’s go to DOC.

And CalTrans? They had over half a billion $$ to work with and gave us over $23 million or 4.13%. Finally…. An agency we can highly praise and thank with Will Kempton at the helm and Olivia Fonseca as deputy director of the Civil Rights Division.

Now to end our bitter-sweet swan song on a not so positive note regarding CalPers. Well they went through almost half a billion $$ and did just $2.4 million or 0.49% with the little guys…. And these are the fellows that keep saying that they’re advocates for the struggling, teeming masses of state employees and our downtrodden DVBE’s….

Actually attaining the DVBE participation goal could conceivably boil down to nothing but an act for some state agencies, consisting mostly of smoke and mirrors ladies and gentlemen.