Boston Mayor Marty Walsh signed an executive order Thursday setting a goal that 25 percent of city spending and contracting be done with minority- and women-owned businesses, following the completion of a city-wide disparity study that recommended structural reforms.
The order says 15 percent of spending should head toward women-owned businesses and 10 percent toward minority-owned businesses.
The city will also invest $2 million into the creation of a supplier diversity program tasked with working with city departments to “foster the full participation of minority- and women-owned businesses in pursuing contracting opportunities,” according to a summary of the order.
“This is the most structural reform city contracting has had in over a generation,” Walsh said at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
A study that started in 2018 examined whether or not there were differences between the percentage of dollars minority- and women owned businesses received in contracts and the percentage of dollars that those businesses would be expected to receive based on their availability to perform those contracts.
“This is something very easily that as a city, we could have just put away and not dealt with,” Walsh said. “It wasn’t fair for the next administration who’s going to come into City Hall and not have a roadmap on how to turn it around. What this does today, it gives a roadmap.”
Celina Barrios-Millner, director of Equity and Inclusion for the Office of Economic Development, said city spending with minority- and women-owned business has increased over the past several fiscal years: 5 percent in FY ’19, 7 percent in FY ’20, and an average of 11 percent over the first two quarters of FY ’20.
“We know we’re just getting started and we know that only counts those businesses that are certified as women or minority owned,” Barrios-Millner said. “Now that we have the disparity study in place, and now that we can legally move towards race and gender conscious goals, we invite all of the businesses in the Boston area, women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, to contact us to get certified as a woman or minority-owned business.”
(Copyright (c) 2026 State House News Service.