State Senator Gary Sipling (D-Orlando) urged Gov. Rick Scott in a letter on Wednesday, to give greater scrutiny to the contracting process and to include qualified African-American and Hispanic businesses around the State.
Sipling used the opportunity to call for the inclusion of more minority contractors, given Scott’s decision to freeze and review the State’s largest contracts.
“Last week we learned that Florida’s unemployment rate had not decreased from its 12 percent rate in November,” Siplin stated in his letter to Scott. “An even more critical part of that percentage is the disproportionate number African-Americans and Hispanics who comprise the 12 percent of Florida’s unemployed.”
Siplin also cited recent statistics released by the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-profit, nonpartisian think tank, which showed that the unemployment rate for African Americans was 15.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 12.9 percent for Hispanics, 8.7 percent for whites, and 7.3 percent for Asian Americans, nationally.
The numbers play out in parallel fashion on the state level, Siplin said.
“What is disturbingly clear…is that in a time of economic depression for all Floridians, the African American and Hispanic communities in this State are experiencing more severe effects than any other resident population,” Siplin said.
Within hours of being sworn-in, Scott halted hundreds of million of dollars in state contracts, calling for a review.
Scott’s three-month freeze, estimated to be $500 million in road works, threatens thousands of existing jobs and is likely to worsen job growth.
