Last November, Kelvin Simmons gave the keynote address at the St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Business, and he did something the public has come to expect from political figures: He made some attractive promises.
As commissioner for the Office of Administration for the State of Missouri, Simmons is in effect responsible for running state government for Gov. Jay Nixon. Speaking to a sold-out audience of minority businesspeople and their allies and advocates last November, Simons promised that Missouri would do better to include minority businesses in the business of state government.
Last week, Simmons did something very rare, for a political figure. Of his own volition, he came to The St. Louis American personally, accompanied by four key staff members, specifically to run down the list of promises he had made last November and to give a detailed account of successes and failures, point by point.
As reported in the Nov. 12, 2009 issue of The American, Simmons told the Salute audience he would “request a one-time appropriation in the Office of Administration budget for a new disparity study.”
Last week, Simmons pointed out that he had tried and failed, with funding for the disparity study being rejected by the Missouri Senate in the course of making sweeping budget cuts. But there was good news mixed in with the bad.
“From a policy perspective, nobody attacked it. It went down for budget reasons only,” Simmons said.
Simmons said that as State finances begin to rebound, the chances for appropriating money for the disparity study will improve. In the meantime, he has delegated staff to outline the legal parameters of a private/public partnership in funding a disparity study and to pursue private funding partners for it.
“We are looking into legalities and an appropriate auditing mechanism,” said Simmons, who has decades of experience in Missouri government with its convoluted financial reporting systems. Simmons has delegated Alan Green, director of the state Office of Supplier and Workforce Diversity, to pursue private funds for the study.
Simmons explained that minority inclusion efforts depend upon a disparity study, due to a history of successful legal challenges to any attempt to mandate inclusion efforts and goals.
“We need a basis to legally mandate state agencies to meet inclusion goals,” Simmons said.
Also last November, as reported in The American, “Simmons said the Office of Administration will reconstitute the Minority Business Advocacy Commission.”
Mission since accomplished. The commission is chaired by Sheila Forrest, owner of Afro World, and also includes Michael Kennedy, founder of KAI Design & Build.
“They have been meeting with each one of the state agencies, asking them to come in and explain their numbers,” Simmons said, meaning numbers for workforce diversity and inclusion of women-owned business enterprises (WBE) and minority-owned business enterprises (MBE) in contracts.
“State agencies have been given a document on how to improve their inclusion efforts, and they have given us strategies how they plan to improve. Each has to have a plan for how to improve their numbers,” Simmons said.
Minority inclusion numbers for Missouri government will be covered in the July 22 special section on “Diversity: A Business and Social Imperative,” published by The American.
Finally, last November, Simmons said his office “will partner with Department of Commerce to implement a new outreach plan to assist W/MBE with contracting opportunities and stimulus dollars.”
He has done that and then some.
Simmons said that stimulus funding has posed a problem for state governments that want to track and bolster W/MBE inclusion. There are no inclusion goals attached to the federal grant process for stimulus funds, and the monies filter to and through the State in so many ways that inclusion numbers can’t be tracked using the existing frameworks.
That is why Simmons hired Celeste Metcalf to work as compliance officer for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. She is designing and developing new processes to track disparate funding information and reporting it at Transform.mo.gov.
“Celeste has found minority businesses included in stimulus funding that were not part of our database, found out from the federal government that they are MBE and doing work in Missouri, and put them in our database,” Simmons said.
Simmons and his staff also are partnering with other inclusion advocates, including the St. Louis Minority Business Council, to present the first Missouri Business Opportunity Summit today (June 17) at the University of Missouri–Columbia.
“We think if we bring businesses together, then when we come out of these bad economic times our folks will be in a much better position if they are connected across the state,” Simmons said.
“Our goal is sustainability, so it’s not just fly by night.”
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“We need a basis to legally mandate state agencies to meet inclusion goals.” – Kelvin Simmons commissioner for the Missouri Office of Administration
“Our goal is sustainability, so it’s not just fly by night.” – Kelvin Simmons commissioner for the Missouri Office of Administration
