BATON ROUGE- Mayor Sharon Weston Broome announced that the city-parish has released a request for proposals to provide technical and administrative support for the development of a citywide disparity study.

The purpose of the study is to expand the pool of bidders on city-parish contracts. In 2016, 27 percent of the bid requests on city-parish work received zero or one bid, according to a release. The request for proposals, RFP, seeks to hire a consultant to design and conduct a study to identify potential firms to expand the pool of bidders and address impediments that prevent firms from engaging in the bidding process.

The consultant will design and conduct a study to identify qualified small businesses, minority businesses, women-owned businesses, and veteran-owned businesses and determined if barriers exist. Once complete, the study will give city leaders a more formal understanding of the marketplace of companies eligible to provide goods and services as well as who can contract with the city. Sealed proposals will be received until April 16 at 2 p.m.