Gov. Paterson MWBE Task Force Adopts Guidelines to Boost Opportunity for Minority and Women-owned Financial Services Firms

Albany - - Governor David A. Paterson’s Executive Order 10 Task Force today adopted a sweeping set of recommendations to increase opportunities for a wide range of financial services firms owned by minority members and women to do business with New York State public authorities.

The best practices recommendations adopted by the Task Force cover accounting services, banking, broker-dealers, certificate of deposit and money market fund investments, financial advisors and swap advisors, and risk management and insurance brokerage services.

Broadly speaking, the two major themes running through the Task Force’s best practices recommendations focus on eliminating artificial barriers to entry to qualified minority and women-owned businesses enterprises (MWBE) seeking work with state authorities, and using majority firms that have demonstrated a corporate commitment to sound diversity practices and programs.

Paul T. Williams, Jr., Chairman of the Task Force and Executive Directory of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) said: “This work by Governor Paterson’s Task Force is making New York a national leader in promoting diversity with approaches that increase competition, reward creativity, spark innovation, and recognize that firms of all sizes and from every region of New York can add value to state operations.”

State authorities frequently require a broad range of financial services in the course of conducting business and routinely obtain them through a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) process.

The Task Force is confident that implementing its best practices recommendations will result in achieving greater competition for state contracts, enhanced quality of financial services, and job-creation in the financial services sector.

The best practices for financial services adopted today by the Task Force include recommendations to:

Remove barriers to entry from the RFP process that state authorities use to initiate a competitive procurement for financial services;
Encourage joint ventures and partnering relationships between MWBE financial services firms and majority financial services firms;
Include a Diversity Questionnaire in every RFP process to better ascertain the diversity policies and practices of financial services firms competing for public authority contracts;
Increase access to state contracting opportunities by shortening the RFP cycle which can run as long as five years, to a shorter cycle;
Unbundle services to create opportunities for qualified smaller firms to compete for discrete blocks of a larger project;
Conduct regular performance evaluations of financial services firms by authorities;
Track fees paid to financial services firms by each state public authority to assess whether work is being equitably allocated; and,
Enlist the services of professional organizations that serve women and/or minority financial services professionals to provide notice of RFP opportunities with state authorities.

These and other recommendations relating to the financial services sector were strongly influenced by comments and proposals made at a forum held by the Task Force in Albany in June. Numerous financial services professionals from minority-owned, women-owned and majority financial services firms made presentations to the Task Force about best diversity practices in their fields and about the challenges and obstacles encountered by MWBE firms attempting to compete for work with state entities.

The adoption by the Task Force of best practices recommendations in the field of financial services follows similar Task Force recommendations issued in October 2008 for the procurement of underwriting services by public authorities that issue state-supported debt, and in May 2009 for the procurement of legal services by state public authorities.

Gov. Paterson established the MWBE Task Force in June 2008 when he signed Executive Order 10.

The Task Force is comprised of the executive directors or presidents of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, the New York State Housing Finance Agency, the New York State Thruway Authority, the Empire State Development Corp., the Environmental Facilities Corp., and three members appointed by Gov. Paterson.

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