The Buttigieg Era, African-Americans, and Accountability, Part I
[This is the first in a series. The second can be found here. The third can be found here.]
A white South Bend Police Officer’s shooting of an African-American citizen, with the officer’s body camera deactivated, focused media lenses on racial divisions in South Bend. Local town hall meetings, angry demonstrations and protests, and press conferences with City and Police leadership were broadcast in global view.
Reports on these divisions have tended to concentrate on policing, understandably. Blurred by this focus thus far: the City of South Bend’s larger record under Mayor Buttigieg regarding South Bend’s increasing racial inequalities. These columns provide a synopsis of this record, including subjects such as economic development, housing, public health, education, public safety, and city hiring. This first column examines the City of South Bend’s purchasing from African-American Owned Business, the Mayor’s relationship with the Housing Authority of South Bend, and the South Bend public school crises during Mayor Buttigieg’s tenure.
I. City of South Bend Spending on African-American Owned Business
The City of South Bend is over 26% African-American, according to the 2010 Census. As a government, the City of South Bend annually spends tens of millions of dollars. By ordinance, passed in 2011, the City of South Bend must report on the utilization of Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses in these expenditures.
According to these yearly reports, in 2012, Mayor Buttigieg’s first in office, the City of South Bend spent roughly $250,000 with three African-American Owned Businesses. By 2014, this outlay was reduced to $2,923 spent on African-American Owned Business, out of $55 million dollars in total city spending. In 2015 -the only year of Mayor Buttigieg’s tenure with a report posted online by the City- South Bend recorded $0 spent with African-American Owned Business, when city purchasing was over $90 million. In 2016 it contracted with only one African-American Owned Business. In 2017 the City of South Bend spent just $707 dollars with a solitary African-American Owned Business, out of over $100 million allocated in contracts.
In Mayor Buttigieg’s first term, City of South Bend records document problems communicated by local African-American business owners and community leaders. In 2014 the minutes of the Minority and Women Business Enterprise Diversity Board reflect concerns about increasing the number and capacity of minority and women owned businesses, streamlining and improving communication between the city and these businesses, creating a list of certified businesses, documenting best practices by other cities, changing a difficult city website for purchasing, and protesting Mayor Buttigieg’s proposal to reduce the hours of the city diversity compliance officer by roughly 40%. Often announced was the need to improve the attendance of Board members, whose absences repeatedly left the board without a quorum that year.
This Board has appointees by Mayor Buttigieg and is meant to work closely with members of his administration. But following the airing of these challenges and complaints, the Board did not get to work. As noted in a prior column, and also in a June 2019 op-ed published in the Michigan Chronicle, this city Board did not meet for the following three-and-a-half years, from late 2014 until early 2018.
Meetings that did occur in 2018 were canceled or stymied by lack of a quorum. A July 2018 meeting, for example, had just two of nine members present. There are no minutes yet posted for 2019.
Since 2012, this Minority and Women Business Enterprise Diversity Board has not posted annual reports on city spending, with the exception of 2015. Records of the membership of the board involved with promoting minority business opportunities have not been updated since 2015.
The public was uninformed of these problems for years. The South Bend Tribune did not publish regarding the ineffectiveness of this Board and the Buttigieg administration in promoting diversity in city expenditures. I received no response to my requests of Tribune staff from 2016 thru 2018 to cover the Board’s lack of meetings and progress. I also received no reply from the Mayor’s Office staff as to why the Board was not meeting.
In late June 2019 a Tribune reporter responded to my request to meet and discuss struggles facing Minority and Women Owned Business. The silence in local media broke when the South Bend Tribune reported in a July 26th, 2019 article:
It’s unclear whether the Buttigieg administration has been following an ordinance, signed into law by previous Mayor Steve Luecke, requiring the city to track and report on minority contracting.
In recent years, fewer than 2% of city contracts have gone to minority- and women-owned businesses.
The Tribune also noted that the 2018 Annual Report on Diversity Purchasing was incomplete, as of July 2019. But the Tribune did not communicate details about the decline and zeroing out of city spending on African-American Owned Business.
The Editorial Board of the Tribune followed up with a column on the lack of clarity and transparency in the city’s relations with Minority- and Women-Owned Business, calling on the Buttigieg administration to comply with the city ordinance and to release a consultant’s draft report on diversity in purchasing that the administration did not plan to release to the public.
I requested this draft report from the City of South Bend in late July 2019, but did not see my request for fulfilled until late September 2019, despite repeated promises from city attorneys that the request would be met earlier. The released draft report was, in the words of Indiana’s Public Access Counselor, Luke Britt, “heavily redacted”, and obscured all information pertaining to the City of South Bend’s records with Minority and Women-Owned Businesses. Strangely, the South Bend Tribune did not follow up and request the draft report, according to a city attorney.
When the final report was released on Oct. 2nd, 2019, it came just 24 hours before the only scheduled public meeting with Mayor Buttigieg about the study, leaving the public little time to read, study, and organize regarding the content of the 110 page study. The city press release summarizing its findings indicated only positive steps the city had taken regarding diversity in purchasing. The Buttigieg administration’s release communicated no details about the lack of city spending on African-American Owned Business.
But the disparity report, written by Colette Holt and Associates, included sharp and substantive criticism of the Buttigieg administration regarding its tenure and diversity in city contracting. For example, in shared excerpts from over 100 interviews with local entrepreneurs and business leaders, are these reported perspectives from or about African-American business owners in South Bend:
“ I really felt like [the City staff] didn’t want me to have the job….”Like, “You just a little black girl. You won’t need that much money.”
“There are Black-owned construction companies, but one reason a lot of them that I talked to went out of business, because they can’t get contracts with the City.”
“There is said to be a clear exclusion, especially to Black-owned and African American companies, to get access to information.” (Pages 41–42)
The 2019 disparity report made connections between these interviews and statistical data: “Consistent with other evidence reported in this study, anecdotal interview information suggests that minorities and women continue to suffer discriminatory barriers to full and fair access to South Bend, and private sector, contracts and subcontracts.” (43)
Among the statistical evidence is an analysis of contracts with a $50,000 valuation or higher awarded by the City of South Bend in a three year period, 2015–2017. This span comprises the last year of Mayor Buttigieg’s first term, and the first two years of his second. Out of over $83 million dollars allocated by the City of South Bend in this data set, $0 was spent on African-American Owned Business. (53–54).
The disparity report distills its wealth of detail into some broad assessments, notably,
“The record– both quantitative and qualitative– establishes that M/WBEs in several sectors in the City’s market area continue to experience significant disparities in their access to City contracts” (84)
It concluded with specific criticisms of Mayor Buttigieg’s administration regarding Diversity and Inclusion, urging the city “to formally create an Office of Diversity and Inclusion”, with increased staff and resources, as well as better defined professional responsibilities. (86) The report noted “major delays” in its work due to a paucity of relevant data maintained by the City of South Bend. (84–5) It also described the “lack of a system” for providing basic electronic documentation of prime contractors, payments, and business information. (85)
Despite these recommendations, in its efforts to change the ordinance governing diversity in city purchasing, in November 2019 the Buttigieg administration tasked the Minority and Women Business Enterprise Diversity Board with supervision of its new ordinance. The South Bend Tribune’s report was understandably skeptical of this plan, noting
An oversight board established to track progress on city contracting with MWBEs had met and filed progress reports only sporadically since 2011, a Tribune report found in July.
[Diversity Officer] Brooks said she wasn’t concerned that the same thing will happen under the new ordinance, which empowers the same board to again monitor the program.
More than 25,000 residents in South Bend identify as African-American, and the State of Indiana maintains a database of Minority and Women Owned Businesses with over 2,000 in-state entries for African-American Owned Business services. Despite this, in its relationship with local and regional economies, over its two terms the Buttigieg administration regressed in number of African-American Owned firms contracted, had amounts spent on African-American Owned Business reduced to zero, and failed in transparency and oversight in city efforts to promote diversity in purchasing. Regarding the city ordinance on diversity in purchasing, the Buttigieg administration appears to have been non-compliant. Annual reports and important data regarding diversity in purchasing were not presented to the public in a timely way.
This lack of accountability has continued to the very end, with the City of South Bend restricting the contents of a 2019 consultants’ report on disparity in city purchasing until the day before the only public meeting with Mayor Buttigieg about it. This report documented anecdotal and statistical data regarding systemic failures of the Buttigieg administration to effectively engage and support African-American Owned Business, much of which had not been publicized previously, owing to years-long breakdowns in reporting by the City and local media.
II. The Housing Authority of South Bend and The Mayor of South Bend
The Housing Authority of South Bend, which oversees low-income housing in South Bend funded by federal dollars, is administered independently of South Bend City government, with important exceptions: the Mayor of South Bend appoints its volunteer and unpaid Board of Commissioners, and for various federal programs City authorization is required for the Housing Authority. Thus the City and the Housing Authority routinely collaborate on matters of shared concern. To this end, Mayor Buttigieg and the leadership of the Housing Authority have kept a quarterly meeting, a custom interrupted only in 2019.
Like the Minority and Women Enterprise Diversity Board of South Bend, the Board of the South Bend Housing Authority has been hindered by concerns about a lack of participating Board members. In 2018, for example, the Board had five Board meetings with minutes publicly posted; though its website currently states it has six Commissioner members, three meetings in 2018 reported just four Commissioners present. Meetings in 2019 have been held without a Board member who receives housing assistance, contrary to Housing Authority policy. Transparency to the public has also suffered: the Board’s website does not host meeting minutes prior to 2018.
There have been problems due to apparent miscommunication between the Board and the Mayor. Two 2018 board meetings, one in September, and the following meeting in October, illustrate conflict and misunderstanding between the Mayor and the Board of Commissioners whom the Mayor appointed.
In the September 26th meeting, Commissioner Roland Chamblee Jr., a retired judge, and one of the first African-American jurists to serve in South Bend, questioned “when other board members will be selected”, adding, “we need a full board, to make sure we have quorum for the meetings.” Commissioner Virginia Calvin, a former college chancellor, and the first African-American superintendent of South Bend Schools, replied that a potential appointee’s name had been suggested to Mayor Buttigieg, and added that “the mayor is satisfied with what we are doing”. She elaborated that “[we] have done a good job cleaning up some of the longstanding problems.” The minutes report her quarterly meeting with the Mayor, with the Executive Director of the Housing Authority, two days before the Board meeting. Commissioner Chamblee Jr. reiterated that “we need new board members now”.
The following month Mayor Buttigieg personally addressed the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority, presenting a laundry list of festering problems, including resident safety, bug infestations, and substandard financial practices. Much of the Mayor’s concerns were written in a letter that was not circulated to Commissioners before the meeting, though the letter’s text indicated that it would be.
Following the Mayor’s presentation, Commissioners of the Housing Authority criticized the Mayor for not notifying them of such concerns prior to the public meeting. Commissioner Calvin, who had met with the Mayor just the month before, and was under the impression that Mayor Buttigieg was satisfied with the Board’s work, called his intervention “unethical”, noting the presence of the press called to this particular meeting, and stated that the Mayor “disturbed the community”. Commissioner Chamblee Jr. described himself as “taken aback” in reaction to Mayor Buttigieg’s approach.
In a letter following that October meeting, Commissioner Calvin shared her view that the City of South Bend had yet to fully communicate its intentions and strategy, writing, “recognizing however, how in depth your research into your concerns apparently has been prior to meeting with the Board, one might assume that the city has already formulated some thought as to the scope of such a Plan [to address problems raised by Mayor Buttigieg]”.
This conflict over unresolved problems and communication came three years after a mass resignation of the South Bend Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. According to the South Bend Tribune, the South Bend Housing Authority was called “troubled” as an agency by HUD watchdogs, and, having $500,000 earmarked for poor families unaccounted for, the Housing Authority received new Commissioner appointments in 2015 from Mayor Buttigieg.
Yet the Housing Authority continued to have problems, even with a different slate of Commissioners. The Housing Authority’s records from 2016 and 2017 were independently audited again, and state investigators reported “inadequate controls” over finance and mismanagement of tenant and applicant records. The agency was deemed “sub-standard” by HUD. In late 2018 it was also reported that 2017 had registered failing inspection scores in properties overseen by the Housing Authority of South Bend, due to infestations of roaches and bed bugs, safety concerns, and maintenance problems.
Despite its struggling status, the Housing Authority was tasked by the City of South Bend as the primary applicant for a federal grant to mitigate lead hazards among low-income families in South Bend, following the 2016 discovery that South Bend had some of the highest concentrations of children with lead poisoning in the country. Such grants require the Mayor’s signature. Despite the widespread public health crisis among city children, the City of South Bend did not pursue its own grant application.
The South Bend Housing Authority’s grant application failed; the City of South Bend’s efforts to remediate lead poisoning subsequently foundered. In July 2017, Ted Booker, the Tribune’s reporter on lead poisoning issues, wrote,
South Bend and county officials acknowledge that they need an action plan, though they don’t have any concrete ideas.
And at the beginning of 2018, the South Bend Tribune published an angry editorial reminding local leaders that,
the future of thousands of kids is at stake. We need to make those kids a priority again.
That same year, the City of South Bend and the Mayor specifically dissuaded the Housing Authority from filing another lead hazard grant. The City applied instead and its application was successful.
Yet problems of cooperation on low-income housing and the lead poisoning of children were not effectively addressed. While in late 2018 Mayor Buttigieg stated in writing that he was establishing his relationship with the Housing Authority among “the top tier of my priorities for my administration for as long as I am mayor”, by early 2019 the Housing Authority leadership described being unable to set quarterly meetings with the Mayor due to his lack of availability.
Regarding lead mitigation, in July 2019 the Operations Manager of the Housing Authority detailed being “left in a lurch” by the City of South Bend, that the City’s pace in implementing the lead grant was slow, that it had formulated a confusing application process, and had the Housing Authority applied, it would have received “almost double the money”.
Problems of oversight, especially into financial practices of the Housing Authority, were not resolved: in late July 2019 FBI agents raided the offices of the Housing Authority of South Bend. In the midst of what became a national news item, Mayor Buttigieg issued a press release describing the Housing Authority as “not part of the City administration”, without noting his status as the elected official who appoints Commissioners for the Housing Authority, nor the routine meetings and communications he has kept with its Commissioners and executive director. In October 2019 the executive director of the Housing Authority was fired, though specific reasons for the dismissal has yet to be disclosed.
III. South Bend Public Schools, Busing, and Civil Rights
“I am really glad you wrote this piece”, a local journalist said three years ago. I had submitted a column on the lack of diversity in city government leadership, and how the absence of diversity was affecting city priorities, including a lack of focus on local schools. She continued, “You know we published Mayor Buttigieg as a candidate in 2011 saying that he would work from day one to help public schools. People voted for him because of that.”
Struggling South Bend public schools were a big topic in the mayoral election of 2011. In following years, South Bend schools demonstrated why they were in need of help. In the last ten years, nearly one out of every four kids has left the South Bend public schools for other public school districts, charter schools, and private schools. 2018 registered nearly 7,000 children in the South Bend public school district transferring to other districts, while only 59 children transferred into South Bend schools. Another 2,630 South Bend school district students attended private schools on public vouchers, at a rate nearly ten times higher than neighboring school districts. As families have withdrawn their students, South Bend schools have lost substantial funding and have shuttered a number of schools and facilities. Basic aspects of school administration have foundered, leading to several schools running out of food for lunch, over 1,000 children documented without required vaccination records, and proposals to close more schools, including one of South Bend’s four high schools.
During the Buttigieg years, school busing has festered as a civil rights crisis, damaging the futures of South Bend students and parents alike. It has disproportionately affected African-American families, as the city’s schools are more diverse than the city: over 36% of students identify as African-American, 29% as Caucasian, 22% as Hispanic, and 10% as multiracial.
South Bend is governed by a consent decree ratified in 1981, requiring each public school to enroll a racially diverse student body that approximates the South Bend school district’s diversity as a whole. Thus busing is used not only to transport children to school but also to integrate less diverse schools, sometimes with children transported long distances from more diverse neighborhoods.
In recent years the reliability of South Bend school buses has been degraded by frequent schedule changes, cancellations, delays and longer commute times for children. One’s family’s experience is illustrative. Living on the West Side of South Bend, their child’s round trip was suddenly increased in the middle of the school year from 35 minutes per day to 80 minutes daily. This family lives less than a mile from the child’s school. At the beginning of the 2019 school year, the family was given a busing schedule with a 95 minute round trip. In previous years, this family experienced bus cancellations or one-to-two hour delays several days each week; many South Bend public school families have had similar experiences.
For some, chaotic transportation conditions have generated threats to a child’s access to public education, as well as to the schedules necessary for a parent’s job or the pursuit of a degree. For instance, I spoke with a supervisor at the University of Notre Dame, who had referred an employee to Human Resources due to chronic tardiness owing to her child’s busing woes.
Public school busing in South Bend has been affected for over four years by labor disputes, driver shortages, training problems, leadership changes, a lack of substitute drivers, and unaddressed parental complaints. During this period the Buttigieg administration has been without substantial involvement in addressing this threat to civil rights, despite campaign promises to make local schools a priority. This omission has been a foil to the example of the City of Mishawaka, which shares a border with South Bend; in 2016, together with local educators, the Mayor and City Council of Mishawaka effectively organized for public school support measures, resulting in substantial sources of new funding to address concerns. South Bend’s schools, which required far more assistance, and were facing multiple crises involving enrollment, busing, and teacher retention, has not received timely and effective support from local leadership.
IV. Conclusion
During Mayor Buttigieg’s nearly eight full years in office, inequalities involving race in South Bend have increased, and in some cases dramatically, despite pledges made in campaign and administration platforms to address them. City contracts with African-American Owned Businesses declined sharply in number and amount. Public school enrollment has plummeted, and with it funding for public education and busing. Pressing issues related to fair and safe housing, including mitigation of the sources of lead poisoning in homes with children, have festered. And coordination between the City of South Bend and African-American contractors, the South Bend Housing Authority, and city schools has suffered due to perennial organizational problems, lack of promised leadership, and failed oversight. In turn, the public has been largely unaware of these problems, owing to a lack of focus on these subjects from the Buttigieg administration, along with the media, local and national.
