A study of Santa Clara County’s public contracts shows only a fraction goes to small, local businesses.

The county launched a vendor disparity study in 2022 to examine the number of minority-owned businesses that won public contracts between July 2016 and June 2021. The study’s final draft was released last week, finding that local, minority-owned businesses amount to only about 15 percent of the county’s total payments. It recommended the county start a small business enterprise program to give local, diverse businesses a more equitable opportunity to bid on public contracts.

According to the study, the county has significant disparities across all four procurement categories: public works and construction, professional services, non-professional services and goods and related services.

The county spent about $2.4 billion on contracts — of that amount only $364 million, or 15 percent, went to minority-owned businesses. Less than 1 percent was spent on Black, Hispanic or Native American owned businesses.

Walter Wilson, a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium, said these findings are “disgraceful.”

“Clearly, there needs to be a program in place to address these disparities,” he told San José Spotlight.

Wilson added that the amount of money given to “unclassified” firms — a whopping 85 percent — was at odds with the county’s demographic makeup. In the study, “unclassified” firms are those not owned by people with minority identities or businesses whose owners could not be identified.

These sorts of disparities are why Black residents have been leaving Silicon Valley, he said, and why projects like the Silicon Valley African American Cultural Center will be vital for supporting the community’s future.

Dennis King, executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Silicon Valley, also said he’s not surprised by how few minority-owned businesses are contracted by the county — but having these numbers in writing will help the county and other local agencies improve in the future.

This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.