State agencies spend more than $100 million a year doing business with minority-owned small businesses in Connecticut, well exceeding targets enshrined in state law, but business people of color say they are getting short-changed. Connecticut’s supplier diversity program, commonly referred to as a contract set-aside program, directs most state agencies to make a good faith effort to spend 25% of their annual contract dollars with Connecticut small businesses (defined as firms with $15 million in annual revenue or less). Of that slice of the pie, 25% is supposed to go to small companies owned by specific racial and ethnic minorities, such as Black, Hispanic and Native American entrepreneurs, as well as by women of any race, including those who are white. “You’re talking 6.25% out of 100%,” said Bernard Thomas, chairman of the Connecticut Minority Construction Council and owner of Hartford-based construction consulting firm BT Solutions. “That’s a huge problem right there.”
https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/with-millions-of-dollars-at-stake-cts-diversity-contracting-program-leaves-minorities