El Paso City Council considers how to award contracts to local businesses

When El Paso’s City Council awards construction contracts they want to use local businesses that hire local residents.The policy is called “Hire El Paso First.”

The question city council is trying to answer is: how do you define local business?
Here are the options they considered in Tuesday’s meeting:

Option one -The business’ headquarters must be in the boundaries of the city.
Option two-The business must be in the city or it has to have at least 15 full time employees, or 35 percent of its workforce that lives in the city.

Taking these two options into consideration, council then has to decide how they’re going to show their preference.They can give an additional five percentage points to the company with headquarters in the city, or 2.5 percentage points to the company with employees that live in the city.

Council members weighed the pro’s and cons of giving preferential treatment to El Paso business. If they do, that could mean they lose competitive bids from outside companies.

“What we’re trying to do is attract business from outside of the city but also give priority to our local businesses to help them grow,” said Mayor Oscar Leeser. “We’re going to discuss how we can best maximize it, and make sure there’s no loop holes and that’s the key.”

Council is going to take more time to clear up the language. They intend to present the final results in 60 days or less.