Lt. Governor bemoans Maryland’s rules on minority contracting

Posted: 7:39 pm Tue, May 11, 2010
By marylandreporter.com

Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown rarely gets to assume the bully pulpit that is the chairmanship of the Board of Public Works, but he took Gov. Martin O’Malley’s absence last week as an opportunity to rail against what he sees as a shortcoming in the state’s minority contracting rules.

Brown complained on several occasions about contractors that claimed there aren’t opportunities to involve minority firms in bids that have to do with proprietary software or technology. The state’s goal is to direct 25 percent of its business to minority or women-owned subcontractors.

But some state information and communications systems are built on platforms that are tightly controlled by their developers, who get long-term deals with the state. An example would be a computer network or program that keeps its source code secret.

Brown said he believes there are opportunities for minority and women contractors, even on those types of systems. On Wednesday, he held up an $860,000 airport communications deal so the proposed contractor, Motorola, could come in and discuss why there weren’t more minority contractors included.

“My concern is that the world will become more proprietary and less [minority business] friendly,” he said during a discussion of an $800,000 technology contract for highway weigh stations. Later, during the Motorola discussion, he was incredulous that the company couldn’t spread some of its state business.

“I don’t believe that proprietary information is an obstacle for developing relationships with the people who maintain this equipment,” Brown said. He was sitting in for O’Malley, who was on a trip to Chicago. The board also includes Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot.

Luwanda Jenkins, who heads the Governor’s Office of Minority Affairs, said there’s not a concrete estimate about how much money is tied up in such proprietary systems, but she suspects the issue will decline in magnitude as the state uses smaller contractors who can work together on contracts.

“While we have a number of proprietary contracts that we are doing maintenance on, we do have a number of emerging opportunities,” she said.