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