WSSC commissioners voted today during their monthly meeting to adopt changes to WSSC’s Small, Local Business Enterprise (SLBE) and Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) program policies.
The newly adopted policies incorporate race and gender updates for small businesses directly from the 2015 Disparity Study. Moving forward, gender and race will not be considered when qualifying a small business for the SLBE program. The MBE program will take a small business’ gender and race into consideration.
* Contract-specific subcontracting requirements;
* Expanded unbundling of large contracts;
* Expedited payments;
* Mentor-Protégé Program;
* Bid price preferences;
* Evaluation point preferences;
* Optimized Diverse Business Development Program (formerly the Sheltered Market Program);
* Small Contract Rotations Program; and
* Graduation Program
The updates set forth in WSSC’s MBE program include updated recommended MBE preferences in the four contracting areas of Architecture and Engineering, Construction, Goods and General Services and Professional Services.
With WSSC’s MBE program scheduled to sunset on July 1, 2017, the Commission is working with legislators to ensure that this program is reauthorized.