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Federal Market Intelligence for Small Business |
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DBE status for HUBZone firms & SDVOSBs?A coalition of HUBZone and service-disabled veteran small business owners is urging Congress to allow them to compete for the Transportation Department’s (DOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) contracts for highway, bridge, airport and mass transit construction. The DOT’s DBE program was created in 1982 to funnel a portion of federal highway construction dollars to socially and economically disadvantaged small firms, currently including 8(a) companies and women-owned small businesses. While some HUBZone and veteran-owned firms also may qualify as DBEs under the current program, most do not. But the coalition spearheaded by the HUBZone Council and VET-Force aims to change that. Saying they want “a level playing field,” the coalition wants to expand the pool of DBEs to include HUBZone firms and SDVOSBs (service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.) Mark Crowley, executive director of the HUBZone Contractors National Council, told Set-Aside Alert that increasing the number of small businesses in the DBE program could result in more small business awards overall, because the law allows states to raise DBE participation goals based in part on the greater availability of eligible small businesses. Results would vary by state, depending on the proportion of DBEs, HUBZone firms and SDVOSBs, he said. Congress set up the DBE program as a civil rights program in 1982. The DOT sends billions in highway money to the states with goals of awarding a percentage of the funds as contracts to DBEs. Some groups are presumed to be disadvantaged, including minority groups and women. The coalition wants Congress to expand the definition of DBEs to include the SDVOSBs and HUBZone firms. “By excluding SDVOSBs and HUBZone firms, the pool of eligible small businesses is limited, depressing the number of small business awards,” the coalition wrote in a “Call to Action.” DBEs received about 9.5% of the federal highway awards in fiscal 2012, Crowley said, and he contends the awards could go much higher if the pool of DBEs was enlarged by thousands of HUBZone and SDVOSB firms. The coalition is urging vendors to contact Congress to ask them to insert language to change the definition of DBE in the upcoming reauthorization of the highway funds. No lawmaker has sponsored such a provision to date, Crowley told Set-Aside Alert, but he is hopeful of support shortly. Even so, Crowley acknowledged there may be hurdles in winning over elected officials who emphasize the civil rights origins of the DBE program, because many of the HUBZone and SDVOSB firms to be included are not minority-owned. DOT has not commented on the coalition’s efforts, but the department recently started a pilot program that might have a similar impact. DOT announced it was open to considering state and local requirements for geographic- and economic-based hiring preferences (presumably similar to those in HUBZones), and preferences for veterans, in a year-long pilot program it has initiated for the highway construction program (http://goo.gl/y9CScb). The DOT said such preferences may help benefits go to disadvantaged workers. But the DOT said it would not approve any projects that would seek to “alter the requirements of the DBE program.”
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