New York’s no-bid contracting scandal: A quarter-billion dollars, awarded by race

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Racial Equity Plan, released on April 6, commits New York City government to using racial classifications to guide more than two hundred goals across nearly every agency. Among other things, the plan commits specific percentages of city contracts to be doled out on the basis of race, a continuation of the city’s longstanding policy. Indeed, for the last several years, the city has been operating one of the largest race-based contracting programs in the country.

One of the most revolutionary aspects of New York’s procurement system is its audacious policy of setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts which cannot be bid on except by New York’s favored racial groups. Under the New York City Charter and the rules of the Procurement Policy Board, city agencies are allowed to hand out contracts for goods, services, and construction worth up to $1.5 million without any competitive bidding at all to businesses the city has certified as a minority or women-owned business enterprise.

This throws the ordinary ethical and anticorruption framework out the door, as long as the vendor on the contract has the right skin color.

The amount of money at stake here is anything but small. In fiscal 2025 alone city agencies registered 1,118 contracts via the women and minority small purchase method, with contracts valued at over $363 million. In 2018, when the city began handing out these contracts, the total amount was capped at $100,000. But it has steadily risen, today encompassing contracts up to $1.5 million. Indeed, the city’s public contracting website lists hundreds of contracts worth more than a million dollars apiece issued under........

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