Chicago unveils plan to fix minority program

The city of Chicago has announced a plan it says will clean up the city’s corruption-plagued minority set-aside program.

City officials announced the $11 million plan on Monday, two weeks after a construction firm was accused of using sham minority and female-owned firms on $200 million in city projects.

The cash for the program will come from a penalty paid by Allied Waste Transportation for “substantial shortfalls” in minority contracting.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that under the plan, the city will hire more compliance officers to make unannounced visits to job sites to make certain minorities and women are doing contracted work.

Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson has called the minority-business program “dysfunctional” and “beset by fraud.” On Monday, he said the new plan, if implemented, could address the problems.