Preliminary analysis prepared independently by House Strategies Group LLC from public data. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Boston. Figures illustrate analytical approach and are subject to revision with primary data. Not a procurement-disparity finding.

Module · Utilization

Where the dollars go

Utilization is the numerator: the share of public spending that reaches diverse firms. Boston publishes its entire discretionary spending and contract-award record as open data, with the City's own certification flag on every line. Every figure on this page is computed from those records, line by line, and every computation is reproducible.

Payment lines analyzed
1,064,059
discretionary spending, FY19-FY26 Q3
Total discretionary spend
$7.54B
eight fiscal years
Contracts analyzed
22,054
all contracts of $10,000 or more
Certified-MWBE share, FY25
12.3%
of discretionary spend

FY25 spend by certification status

Share of City discretionary spending, fiscal year 2025. MBE and WBE figures include dual-certified MWBE firms.

9.9%
Certified MBE
MBE + dual
3.1%
Certified WBE
WBE + dual
12.3%
All certified MWBE
Combined
25.0%
The City's goal
2021 Executive Order

Source: City of Boston Discretionary Spending open data (Analyze Boston), retrieved 2026-07-28. The 25 percent goal is the February 2021 Executive Order's combined MWBE target.

Spend mosaic by certification

Every segment of FY25 City discretionary spending. Hover for detail.

Certified MBE / WBE / MWBENon-WaM business

Source: City of Boston Discretionary Spending open data, FY25, computed by HSG.

Certified-MWBE spend share, FY19 to FY26

Share of discretionary spending reaching City- or State-certified firms

Source: City of Boston Discretionary Spending open data, all 1,064,059 lines, computed by HSG.

Contract-award lens: MWBE share of procurement-contract value

Maximum award value of procurement contracts beginning each FY

Source: City of Boston Contract Award open data (22,054 contracts of $10,000+), computed by HSG. FY26 is partial (through Q3).

What eight years of the City's own data show

The reform era is visible in the data. So is its unevenness.

All certified MWBE
+7.1%
FY19 to FY25 change
Certified MBE
+6.7%
FY19 to FY25 change
Certified WBE
+0.0%
FY19 to FY25 change
Reading these series honestly
  • The flags track City- or State-certified firms only. Diverse firms that never certified are invisible here, so every certified share is a floor on true participation.
  • The 2020 study measured participation certified or not; its 11.0 percent and these series are different lenses, not a continuous time series.
  • Spending and award-value lenses answer different questions: awards move first when policy changes; spending follows as contracts execute.
  • The WBE line is the standout: essentially flat near 2.5 percent for eight years while the MBE line more than tripled. The update must explain that divergence, not average over it.
A public-data limit worth naming
Certification-flag utilization understates true diverse-firm participation by an unknown amount. Closing that gap requires matching the City's vendor file to certification directories, business registries, and a verification survey, which is primary-data work this portal deliberately does not attempt. The full study reconstructs utilization at the transaction level, certified or not, exactly as the 2020 study did.
Definitions
  • Discretionary spending: payments to suppliers through contracts ($10,000+) or purchase orders (under $10,000), FY2019 through FY2026 Q3.
  • Contract awards: agreements of $10,000 or more, valued at contract maximum, dated by the fiscal year the contract begins.
  • Certification flag: the City's own field identifying City of Boston or Commonwealth (SDO) MBE/WBE certification.
See utilization against availabilityCompare with the 2020 baselineHow utilization is reconstructed