African American Business Participation at The City of Dallas

While gathering information on minority participation on contracts, and particularly African American business participation with public agencies, it was striking that Councilman Dwaine Caraway, Tennell Adkins and Mayor Tom Leppert are interested in how well other agencies are utilizing African American contractors and businesses. They appear to want to tell other agencies that they should do a better job at utilizing African American businesses ,but when you look at the city of Dallas's record, you can only wonder why aren't they trying to make sure that equity is spreading within the arena that they have some control over instead of going to other agencies making demands. The city's African American business participation:

FY 2005-2006

African American $14,828,786.............. 5.1%

Expenditures $289,385,589

FY 2006-2007

African American $22,443,183............... 5.9%

Expenditures $377,702,706


FY 2007-2008

African Americans $25,287,511................ 5.4%

Total Expenditures $468,578,222



Total 3 years African American Participation ............. $62,559,480
Total 3 year Expenditures ................................$1.135 Billion
Total 3 year percentage ..................................... 5.5%


Mayor Leppert,Dwaine Caraway, and Tennell Adkins need to make sure that the city of Dallas is doing everything it can to ensure that their is inclusion on the city's contracts instead of going to other agencies telling them what to do. Make sure that your house is in order before going to others to tell them what to do.