State Senator Raoul sponsors legislation impacting minority business enterprises

Senator says disadvantaged business program should focus on true barriers to access

SPRINGFIELD, IL –Illinois State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13^th), who chairs hearings annually to promote diversity in financial services firms that do business with the state’s pension funds, is pushing for two policy changes he says will ensure inclusion efforts are accurately tracked and that even companies not owned by minorities or women are encouraged to value diversity in hiring and awarding contracts.

“State assistance programs for disadvantaged enterprises exist because historically, businesses whose owners are women, minorities or persons with disabilities have encountered greater barriers to accessing capital, credit and contracts than those owned primarily by white men,” Raoul said. “However, current law allows the state and other entities to track the extent to which they do business with companies which have more than half of its owners fit in any combination of the identified categories. A company certified by the state as a minority-owned business should, in fact, be more than 50 percent minority-owned.”

Senate Bill 122, which requires a company granted disadvantaged business status to be 51 percent or more owned by either minorities, women or persons with disabilities, without using a combination of these categories to qualify, was approved last week in the Senate. Certified businesses are eligible for certain kinds of opportunities in awarding contracts not only for financial services but for construction and other types of work performed for state agencies.

Raoul also co-sponsored Senate Majority Leader James Clayborne (D-East St. Louis)’s Senate Bill 452, a legislative proposal requiring all financial services firms seeking to do business with state pension systems to disclose the number of contracts they have with minority-owned, women-owned and/or disabled-owned firms, as well as the percentage of their senior staff who are minorities, women or persons with disabilities.

“I hold pension diversity hearings every year because the State of Illinois is interested in opening the doors of opportunity and removing barriers to access, plain and simple,” said Raoul, who in 2005 co-sponsored legislation that made it a felony to misrepresent one’s business as eligible for Disadvantaged Business Enterprise certification. “Now we’re well on our way to making sure our laws on disadvantaged businesses achieve that purpose.”