Resolution 2006-02 - Pilot Set-Aside Contract Program to Increase Employment for PWD

RESOLUTION #2006-02

Mayor's Disability Council Resolution Urging a Pilot Set-Aside Contract Program to Increase Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities

WHEREAS, people with disabilities are employed at half the rate of the general population, (35% of people with disabilities, compared to 78% of those without disabilities); and

WHEREAS, three times as many people with disabilities are actively trying to become employed than the percentage in the general population (14.1% vs. 5.8%); and

WHEREAS, the 2004 National Organization on Disability/Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities found three times as many people with disabilities living in poverty than the general population (25% of people with disabilities had annual household incomes below $15,000 versus 9% of the general population); and

WHEREAS, employment is not only important as a means of participation and belonging in society, but also a crucial route out of poverty; and

WHEREAS, the benefits to our community of every individual becoming employed, paying taxes, contributing to the local economy as a consumer, and reducing dependence on scarce community resources is both measurable and fundamental to our community values; and

WHEREAS, employment set-aside programs have been demonstrated to be one effective mechanism for State and local governments to employ people with disabilities while receiving cost-effective and quality services; and

WHEREAS, such set-aside programs were started in 1938 with the passage of the Wagner-O'Day Act and expanded with Sections 19403 and 19404 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code; and

WHEREAS, San Francisco's bid preference program has had the unintended effect of restricting contracting opportunities to entities that employ people with disabilities by involving only privately owned businesses and not non-profits that exist to assist people with disabilities to become employed; and

WHEREAS, other counties, such as Ventura, Kings, and Kern County have all successfully used California's State set-aside program to employ many people with significant disabilities, who would otherwise be unemployed;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Mayor's Disability Council urges the Mayor to instruct the City's Office of Contract Administration to initiate a series of trial set-aside contracts through the California Alliance of Rehabilitation Industries (CARI) state-use program to increase the employment of people with disabilities in our City, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that for this trial period, these set-aside contracts amount to at least $500,000 or 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the City's contracting and bid opportunities.

_______________________________________________________________

June 16, 2006 Mayor's Disability Council – ADOPTED

Ayes: 9 - Jack Fagan, Jul Lynn Parsons, Norma Block, Elizabeth Grigsby, Richard Ow, Denise Senhaux, Tatiana Kostanian, Eugene Flannery and Amy Wishnie.

Nays: 0

Absent: Robert Neil