To what extent has the Supreme Court's decision in City of Richmond V. J.A. Croson Co.(1989) affected the amount of money spent by local governments on minority business enterprises (MBEs)? The ruling stipulates that nonfederal minority set-aside programs must be based upon actual incidence of discrimination. Otherwise, such programs violate the equal protection use of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this exploratory study, I examine the short-term impact of the Croson decision. Fitch (1992) concludes that Croson may only make it more difficult for state and local governments to have set-aside programs and that nothing in the decision suggests the death of set-asides. He recommends that state and local governments first establish that race-neutral remedies fail to correct discrimination in awarding contracts. Second, lawmakers should be provided with concrete statistical evidence of unexplained disparity between the amount of contract dollars nonminority firms receive and what minority firms should receive in the absence of discrimination. Third, corroborating anecdotal evidence of the inference drawn from results of statistical evidence should be provided. Fourth, state and local officials should set flexible numerical goals allowing for a reduction of disparity between the amount of contract dollars minority firms receive and what they should receive (Fitch, 1992, pp. 584-585). Two questions are pertinent to this investigation. Have cities moved away from minority set-aside programs? Have cities found race- and gender-neutral remedies for accomplishing the goals of set-asides? If so, what are they? Some of the options cities took in the aftermath of Croson are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Comparison of Selected Expenditures on Minority Business Enterprises, 1988 and 1990 (in dollars) Race and Gender Neutral City ID Number 1988 1990 6 69,950 1,990,704 38 16,145,713 24,109,011 41 2,786,108 8,897,427 Nonneutral Goals 8 283,250 650,139(*) 13 372,578 238,439(**) 21 2,001,706 2,383,175(***) 31 86,079,778 87,053,238(*) 40 N/A 3,312,547 Retained Set-Asides 23 3,778,443 1,469,737(***) 30 16,244,943 31,567,009(*) 32 23,262,711 9,000,890(*) 49 12,459,300 8,663,000(**) 51 12,149,725 4,445,663(***) 52 3,901,100 3,543,286(***) (*) Disparity study ongoing (**) Dismantled voluntarily. (***) Dismantled by judicial order. Disparity studies are the route taken by many jurisdictions as a means to justify the continued existence of set-aside plans given evidence of past or present discrimination in awarding city contracts. More than 50 jurisdictions instigated disparity studies (National Urban League, 1990). Evidence of past discrimination as a basis for set-aside justification was found in all jurisdictions studied. Race and gender neutral plans are attempts to comply with the Court's ruling by protecting previous set-aside levels within larger overall goal percentages to accommodate both minority and nonminority small businesses. Nonneutral goals, like set-asides themselves, often have been dismantled by judicial order (Engineering News Record, 1990). The initial hypothesis of this research is that cities with a greater percentage minority population will exert greater effort to retain set-asides. Thus, are strategies related to minority presence? This is an important question because one would assume that greater minority presence translates into greater minority influence over public policy. One would also assume that various minority groups concentrated in different regions of the country reflect similar efforts. Analysis How do the various responses to Croson reflect the current level of municipal contracting with MBEs? …