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A new task force formed by Mayor Jim Suttle will attempt to rethink a city policy that has long helped small Omaha businesses win city contracts.
The task force, announced Tuesday by Suttle, will begin meeting next week. By September, the group is expected to recommend a new plan to help small businesses compete with larger firms for city contracting work.
The group “will begin the discussion of how to fairly award city contracts to small businesses and to ensure that all businesses are adequately matched to the work and services as needed by the City of Omaha,” Suttle said.
The task force, to be headed by engineer Roger Wozny, appears to be the latest attempt to salvage the idea behind the long-time Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program.
That program helped small businesses by requiring that a certain percentage of subcontracting work go to such businesses every time the city did something like build a new park or renovate a library.
Then-Mayor Mike Fahey attempted to expand the small business program earlier this year after the city ended its Protected Business Enterprise Program, which guaranteed that a certain percentage of subcontracting work went to businesses owned by minorities or women.
The Protected Business Enterprise program became unconstitutional after Nebraska voters banned affirmative action in November. The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program was still constitutional because it helped all small businesses regardless of its owners' race, gender or ethnicity.
In order to expand the program, Fahey needed the approval of the Omaha City Council. The council gutted the plan, with some members expressing concern about the plan's cost and doubting its necessity.
Other council members and Fahey have said that the program is essential to helping new businesses grow and improving the city's overall economy.
Tuesday, the council agreed to delay any action on a small-business program until September so that the task force has time to work on possible solutions. Councilman Chris Jerram made the request.
By then, Jerram said, the council will know whether the task force has the right ideas “or if it would fall upon us to do that.”
Other members of the task force include Councilman Ben Gray and members of the mayor's administration, as well as local business leaders.
World-Herald staff writer Maggie O'Brien contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com
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