The New York City Council has released a disparity study illustrating the long-held belief of discrimination in awarding women and minority business city contracts.

The study was funded by the council and conducted by Mason Tilman Associates research firm, under the supervision of the Medgar Evers College’s Center for Law and Justice and the Dubois Bunche Center for Public Policy. It was funded in 2002 with a $1 million grant from the city budget to City University of New York.

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and members of the council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus said that they were alarmed by the study’s findings.

“I would like to say that the information in this study is new and surprising, but it isn’t,” said Miller. “It is extremely disappointing and unacceptable.” Miller said that a lot of work still needs to be done and said the Bloomberg administration failed the city and many of the women- and minority-owned businesses based here.

The study examined 142,189 contracts that were handed out by 23 city agencies between July 1997 and June 2002. The contracts were worth an estimated $19 billion. According to some of the study’s findings, Black-owned businesses represented 43.1 percent of construction firms but were awarded 1.7 percent of contracts. Businesses owned by white males represented 40.3 percent of architecture and engineering firms available and received 77.9 percent of contracts.

Councilman James Sanders, Jr. of the 31st District said that the city has a de facto discrimination that has not received enough attention.

“They’ve been practicing a type of segregation that would warm the heart of arch segregationists of the past,” said Sanders, who is chairman of the Economic Development Committee. Sanders said that his primary obligation is to make sure that women- and minority-owned businesses are not artificially constrained by discrimination. He emphasized that the benign neglect from the city has lead to more competition among businesses and this has raised the price, thus causing an artificial inflation specifically for minority- and women-owned businesses.

“It is no secret that African-American and Hispanic men and women in New York City have been underrepresented in the work force,” said Council Majority Whip Leroy Comrie. He said that a probable cause of the study’s findings is that the contracting process is too complex and obtuse, which creates more difficulty for minority and women businesses to obtain city contracts.

The only prior such study was initiated and funded by former Mayor David Dinkins, but was later discontinued by the Giuliani administration.

Councilman Charles Barron said that the disparity study explodes the myth of finding qualified Blacks. “White males are over-utilized and privileged and this disparity study is evidence,” he said. He also mentioned that racism exists in city agencies because there has been no hiring of minorities for top management positions.

Councilwoman Letitia James said that the affirmative action law only exists on the state level, but not on the local level. She said that the law needs to be imposed and goals should be established with every city agency. The councilwoman stated that race-conscious goals, such as minority-owned contract businesses, and race-neutral remedies should be implemented by the legislation.

Councilman Robert Jackson, who is chair of the City Council’s Contracts Committee, said that he will convene hearings of the testimonies from business owners and their employees to determine the validity of the study’s findings. He said that the end result would be the fair share of goods and services for women and minority businesses.

Last year, the New York City Department of Small Business Services, on behalf of the Bloomberg administration, announced the creation of the New York City Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises Program to increase opportunities for city-certified Minority Business Entrepreneurs. Since 2003, the administration has increased the number of minority- and women-owned businesses that can bid for city contracts.

Sanders is currently leading a working group that plans to look at recommendations for addressing this crucial issue.