The Columbia City Council consider including a minority and women owned business program plan in the city’s 2016-2019 strategic plan.
Consultant James Whitt says the minority and women business program would be a commitment by the city to see if it can improve the diversity of business ownership within the community and create more jobs.
“During the recession Columbia really was kind of bypassed because of the industries that are located here specifically education, insurance, and health care. It really lessens the impact of the recession here,” Whitt said. “When you dig deep into these numbers what we found out is that minority unemployment really was triple, you know, everybody else within the community. Into double digits- 15%.”
This strategic plan would aim to build a stronger minority and disadvantaged business communities with well-paying jobs and opportunities.
There are five main goals for the program. These include: revising the city’s bidding procedures and guidelines to increase potential participation, providing training and financial assistance to Columbia’s minority and women owned businesses, and implementing an effective monitoring process for vendors and city staff.
The program will impact the city by creating better and stronger businesses.
“If we got stronger businesses, we got more jobs. The city benefits and more commerce, more people working and more tax revenues,” Whitt said. “It helps overall within the city if we’re impacting and helping to create and grow strong businesses.”
Among other things, the program would render the city’s bidding procedure, and provide training and assistance to support minority and women-owned businesses.
The city council will vote on the proposal at its November 7th meeting.