By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A four-year study of Cincinnati's construction and purchasing contracts has found that minority- and women-owned businesses do not get their fair share of city contracts.

The study, released Tuesday by City Manager Valerie Lemmie, paves the way for City Council to enact more specific policies that Ms. Lemmie says will help those businesses compete.

The Croson study, named after a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision, must find statistical evidence of a disparity in contracts before local and state set-aside programs can be found constitutional. City officials say the 107-page report by Atlanta consulting firm Griffin & Strong does just that.

The study found that from 1995 to 1998, when minority set-asides were in place, minority and women-owned businesses were actually overutilized relative to their availability in the marketplace.

But after 1998, after a court challenge by the Ohio Contractors Association forced the city to adopt a race- and gender-neutral Small Business Enterprise program, the pendulum swung the other way.

In response, Ms. Lemmie proposed a series of new contracting policies that she said would "level the playing field" - but no more.

She's proposing narrowly tailored policies that would:

Cut red tape for minority-owned businesses to be certified by the city.

Require the city to get three phone quotes from eligible businesses before awarding purchasing contracts of $5,000 or less, or construction contracts of $50,000 or less.

Revise performance-bonding requirements that often make it difficult for small businesses to get city contracts.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com