State DOTs and DBE
ImplementationFriday, August 9, 2013
Randelle RiptonDBE Technical Advisor
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State DOTs & DBE Implementation
This session will address the following:
• What does it mean to foster small business participation?
• Oversight & Reporting Requirements for States and their subrecipients
• Open Question & Answers
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Fostering Small Business Participation
• What does your small business element include?– Race-neutral set-asides for prime contracts ?
– Bid specifications requiring the creation of appropriately sized subcontracts?
– alternative acquisition strategies supporting the creation of joint ventures?
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Fostering Small Business Participation
• 48 of the 52 States and Territories– Have Approved
Small Business Elements
• FTA, FHWA & FAA issued joint approvals of the §26.39 submissions
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Unbundling• Consider “unbundling”
large projects into smaller pieces DBEs and SBEs can reasonably perform.– Low Bid?
• price preference for small businesses
Photo credit: www.businessmodelstudios.com
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Strategies
Require prime bidders to identify subcontracts within a large contract
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Small Business Set-Aside?– Establish a small
business set-aside for prime contracts• Must be absent social
disadvantage!• No DBE contract goals
within here.
Photo Credit: Microsoft Online Stock Photos
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Prime specifies subcontractsHave the prime provide subcontracting opportunities of a size that small businesses can perform
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How do you know if you’re successful?
• How much of your business is done with small businesses?
• Has your DBE participation improved?
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Capacity Building?• Networking and relationship-building
is critical!• Professional success is about 85 percent “who”
you know and 15 percent “what” you know.*
• Successful people spend over half their time building relationships.*
* Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the Black Community by George C. Fraser
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Questions?
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Oversight of Subrecipients
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Understanding the $250k threshold
• FTA recipients receiving planning, capital and/or operating assistance who will award prime contracts (excluding transit vehicle purchases) exceeding $250,000 in FTA funds in a Federal fiscal year;
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Who’s responsible• Direct recipients
responsible for subrecipients– Subs report through
direct recipients
Photo credit: Draw Street hierarchy www.bfoit.org
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Grant & Contract Assurance• (a) Each financial
assistance agreement you sign with a DOT operating administration (or a primary recipient) must include the following assurance:
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Goal Setting• Overall goal based on the work that
you and your subrecipients will undertake– This included a race conscious & race neutral
split
– What are your subrecipients doing?• Many believe that the being required to “do DBE”
means
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Monitoring• must include a monitoring and
enforcement mechanism – work committed to DBEs must be performed by
the DBEs– written certification that you have reviewed
contracting records and monitored work sites
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Reporting• mechanism must provide for a running tally
of actual DBE attainments ( e.g., payments actually made to DBE firms), including a means of comparing these attainments to commitments. – More than just the Uniform Report
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Accountability
if you fail to implement your program in good faith, you are in noncompliance with this part.
– §26.47
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Questions?
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Federal Transit
Administration
www.fta.dot.gov