This Isn’t Fair!
EQUITY is supposed to mean FAIRNESS. But with the budget for Harris County’s DEI program has ballooned 500% in just four years. Using funds from the COVID pandemic that haven’t been needed in years. Hopefully Elon Musk is watching what we’ve discovered.
We all remember President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Arpa as it’s known…?
Federal money meant to help folks recover from Covid… and Harris
County got nearly a billion dollars of it.
“We are hooked on Arpa. It’s funding. It’s paying for things,” said Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey.
But the pandemic ended almost three years ago. Why are we still spending the money… instead of sending it back to taxpayers?
On December 2, we saw that Harris County still has $131 million left over… We aren’t the only ones asking questions.
“You’re asking the questions now, in a few short months, is going to be the federal government asking the same blessed questions,” suggested Ramsey.
We think what we’ve uncovered would make a great headline for
someone we all know by now. I hope Elon’s watching…
I’m sure Rodney Ellis, Lina Hidalgo and that group of tax-raising big spenders downtown will just love our newest idea… we can become the DOGE of Harris County.
London the barber shapes the hair on the heads of his customers on Glenmont Drive…
“I’m a master barber, I’ve been in business for over 13 years,” he explained.
Covid was a rough time for him.
“That affected my business cause I couldn’t work for, like, almost a year.”
But that problem ended almost three years ago. Yet, the Harris County Department of Economic Equity, our version of DEI, had a sweet deal for London….
Harris County would pay for him to complete 30 hours of business training.
He’d then get a five-thousand-dollar government grant.
And surprise, surprise. It’s the folks at Baker Ripley who got one of the two contracts to spread business wisdom…
“Baker Ripley sent me through a program, that I believe it was the Verizon wireless grant program that, they had me sign up with,” expressed London.
London says the Verizon videos were the biggest chunk of his business education through Baker Ripley.
“I believe at least over 40 hours.”
But it turns out London’s customers aren’t the only ones getting clipped… taxpayers are getting clipped too.
Because those Verizon videos… Anyone can watch them. Because they are free to watch.
Yet Baker Ripley is getting paid up to 2 million dollars to provide business training to 400 small businesses.
The scope of work doesn’t spell out how much they are being paid per hour… we do know you have to take at least 30 hours to get the grant.
So let’s get out the Dolcefino Media chalkboard…
It looks like we’re paying Baker Ripley an average of $167 per hour.
Baker Ripley ignored our phone calls…. And the folks here at Equity headquarters downtown won’t answer a single question…
Including the head of DEEO, Estella Gonzalez, who makes $259,000 per year… You know where she worked before. Take a guess… Baker Ripley.
Estella’s department was created in 2019 to connect “women, minority, and disadvantaged business enterprises with Harris County contracting opportunities.”
“The DEEO has significantly slowed down our ability to get projects bid and projects built,” assured Ramsey.
At last count -68- people work at DEEO… There are way more managers than workers. Fifteen of those managers make more than $100,000 a year.
In 2021, the DEEO cost taxpayers $1.5 million to run. Four years later, the budget has ballooned, $8.7 million. That’s an increase of 500%.
“We just can’t tolerate. We can’t afford it. Whether that’s Arpa’s wasting money or USAID wasting money,” emphasized Ramsey.
Requirements to qualify for the business training program included being in business by January 27, 2020. And being registered with the Secretary of State.
But is anyone making sure that happens? From our spot check, the answer is no.
But MGroup Media did qualify and celebrated when the owner completed 72 hours of training.
“I’ve been working on my small business, so that’s why I learned about the Baker Ripley classes and the grant,” said Connie Marmolejo.
Half of her time was spent watching videos on what’s called Kauffman FastTrac.
Here we go again folks.
They are free too… paid for by a private foundation.
[Roads Consulting automatic message]: “Roads Consulting Group… For Harris County, please press two.”
The second vendor in this Harris hub business program is Roads Consulting. Their headquarters aren’t in Houston, but in Boston, Massachusetts.
“So black, latin, minority women-owned, all of those businesses have the priority to receive the technical assistance,” declared their Senior Marketing consultant Danyela Galeano.
And they are not charging money for you to watch a free video. They do the training with live people… Uh-oh.
Andrea Palacio: “Would you recommend this program to anybody else?”
Virginia Manning: “No.”
Virginia Manning is a licensed professional counselor. For her business, Ginman Consulting, Roads assigned one person to help her with social media.
“I say we met about four times. Now, I don’t like the quality of the work that she was doing.”
Another person was assigned to help with business strategy. Virginia met him once… he stood her up twice more.
“He wasn’t acting interested in helping at all. He acted like I was a bother to him or something.”
Auditors might want to start examining the Roads invoices.
Andrea: “They billed Harris County 33 hours for working with you.”
Virginia: “Yeah, well I didn’t complete it.”
Harris County may have been billed for 33 hours. Virginia says it was more like 13 hours of training, not 33.
“Yeah, guess they didn’t know they would get audited. I mean, if you’re getting some grant money from the city or state, you should expect you probably will get audited,” she exclaimed.
Roads Consulting is being paid $600,000 for 200 contracts with Harris County, which cover 30 hours of business training for 200 small businesses. That an average of $100.
But wait a minute, Baker Ripley’s average is more like $167 per hour… that’s not very equitable
“Those are good questions. Somebody should be able to answer that,” claimed Ramsey.
We’ve been pounding the pavement to talk to other Harris hub businesses…
Alfredo Alvarez started work with Roads Consulting last April, but we know this business couldn’t have been hurt by Covid because it wasn’t even created until May of last year.
Equity may be about fairness, but what we’ve discovered is anything but fair.
“Believe me, the public is fed up with it,” assured Ramsey.
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