Shelby County officials don’t dispute Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s statement about the small percentage of county contracts that go to minority-owned and women-owned businesses in comparison to the city of Memphis.

But they say there are enough differences in the city and county MWEB programs that comparing the two based solely on a single percentage is not an accurate representation of the county’s efforts.

Strickland, who is running for a second term, made the comparisons while appearing on the WKNO-Channel 10 program “Behind The Headlines,” hosted by Eric Barnes of The Daily Memphian.

A week earlier, County Commissioner Tami Sawyer, who is also in the mayor’s race, took shots at Strickland’s commitment to the African American community. He responded by defending his record on city contracts with minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBE), including those businesses that will get work from the $175 million expansion of the Memphis Cook Convention Center.

“I feel an onus on me to better serve the public. When I took over, we said we’re going to increase our MWBE spend. When I took over, it was 12 percent of our contracts,” Strickland said. “We’re now up to 20 percent. The all-time high for city government. And we have the largest MWBE project in the history of the city with $49 million going to MWBEs at the convention center. And you know what? You know what Commissioner Sawyer’s MWBE number over at the county is? Three. Three percent and that program is run by county commissioners.”

While he thinks the county’s MWBE percentage is higher, Commissioner Van Turner, chairman of the equal opportunity/MWBE/LOSB (locally owned small business) committee acknowledges that the county’s numbers are low.

Turner blames the federal lawsuit filed in January by the Mechanical Contractors Association of Memphis Inc., White Plumbing & Mechanical Contractors Inc. and Morgan & Thornburg Inc. The lawsuit contended that firms owned by minorities and women get preference in construction contracting jobs on county projects.

“We halted a lot of what we were doing based on advice from counsel,” Turner said.

The mayor oversees the MWBE program for the city, but on the county side it is the commission’s responsibility.

In 2016, a disparity study found that 88.3% of all prime contract dollars went to businesses owned by white males, with 5.8% going to African American owned businesses and 5.1% going to white women contractors.

The county’s MWBE program was launched in 2017, said Shep Wilbun, county chief supplier diversity officer. Wilbun was hired by the commission.

In contrast, Wilbun said, he helped write the city’s first LOSB rules in the 1990s while serving on the Memphis City Council and was a county commissioner in the late 1990s when its minority spending program was thrown out by a judge.

The city’s MWBE program has been in operation since the 1990s, while the county’s is only two years old, Winbun said.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit has impacted the county’s MWBE program internally and externally, Wilbun said.

“Essentially, the lawsuit against us did a number of things. One, it caused internally within the county there to be a reluctance to aggressively apply our MWBE rules,” he said.

Second, the lawsuit involved construction, which is an area where ideally, the county would get the most participation.

“So, the fact that the lawsuit is in the area which has the potential to produce the greatest impact in terms of inclusion in spending, then it has obviously a chilling effect in that regard,” Wilbun said.

In addition, the lawsuit has raised a concern among vendors about the program’s ongoing viability, he said.

“We’re having to dispel that by saying the program is still operational. We’re still attempting to address inclusion to the level we would like to have inclusion and we’re encouraging them to continue to become involved with us so we can do that,” Wilbun said.

The city’s program, Wilbun said, allows for participation in the Memphis market area, which includes Desoto, Crittenden, Fayette and Tipton counties.

The county’s program is only for Shelby County businesses, although county businesses that qualify under the city’s program will also qualify for the county, he said.

Still, “our program has nuances that the city’s program does not,” Wilbun said.

County Mayor Lee Harris said he’s had little contact with this component of county government, but he would not be opposed to working with the County Commission.

“Maybe on our side, we need to add so that we can be responsive to the community’s interest in making sure that minority contracting grows,” Harris said.