Requires that bidders and all others seeking state contracts disclose their percentage and number of female executives and board members and their aspirations to include more female members.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
502
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 9, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. L. ROSENTHAL -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Governmental Operations
AN ACT to amend the state finance law, in relation to requiring that
bidders and all others seeking state contracts disclose their percent-
age and number of female executives and board members
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Legislative intent. The legislature finds that there is a
2 growing body of evidence that companies perform better when their boards
3 and executive leadership are strongly represented by women and that the
4 state has a vested interest in ensuring that companies receiving public
5 funds and contracts perform efficiently to maintain a high rate of
6 success. Further, the legislature finds that it is in the state's vest-
7 ed interest to encourage equitable and diverse gender representation on
8 corporate boards of companies receiving public funds and contracts. It
9 is the intent of this act to require companies who wish to do business
10 with the state to disclose the current percentage and number of women
11 executive officers employed by the company, percentage and number of
12 women on its corporate board, and the company's goals for the increased
13 participation of women in executive positions and on corporate boards.
14 § 2. The state finance law is amended by adding a new section 149 to
15 read as follows:
16 § 149. Disclosure of women in executive positions and serving as board
17 members by state contractors. 1. All contract solicitations including
18 but not limited to, invitations for bids, requests for proposals,
19 requests for applications and requests for qualifications for contracts,
20 in excess of one hundred thousand dollars shall require that all offe-
21 rors seeking state contracts shall disclose:
22 (a) the current percentage and number of women serving in executive
23 positions and as board members for the offeror;
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD00861-01-3
A. 502 2
1 (b) the offeror's aspirational goals for the inclusion of women serv-
2 ing in executive positions and as board members; and
3 (c) the intended efforts by the offeror to achieve such aspirational
4 goals.
5 2. Prior to May thirty-first of each year, each state agency in
6 receipt of the information required pursuant to subdivision one of this
7 section shall be responsible for providing the department of economic
8 development with the compiled diversity data for every offeror seeking a
9 state contract, whether or not such offeror was awarded the contract,
10 for the prior calendar year. Such data shall include, but need not be
11 limited to, data relating to general trends in the number of women serv-
12 ing in executive positions, serving on boards, statistics relating to
13 winning and losing bidders, the method which agencies reflect diversity
14 information in their scoring, and the manner in which such scoring is
15 performed.
16 3. The department of economic development shall aggregate and analyze
17 the data received by agencies pursuant to subdivisions one and two of
18 this section and present an annual report to the governor, the temporary
19 president of the senate, the speaker of the assembly, the minority lead-
20 ers of the senate and the assembly, and the chairpersons of the senate
21 finance and assembly ways and means committees.
22 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
