In August 1998, the Board of Supervisors adopted the Outreach Program to promote broad outreach to all businesses, including minority business (MBE), women (WBE), disabled veteran (DVBE), small (SBE), local (LBE), and other (OBE) business enterprises. In December 13, 1999 the Board approved the Small Business Enterprise (SBE) Program for the purpose of providing small businesses a larger proportionate share of County business and contracting opportunities. As a result of recent program amendments, the SBE Program currently applies to County construction contracts, professional/personal services contracts, and purchasing contracts in amounts of $100,000 or less, except for certain transactions that are exempt from the program. The goal of the SBE program is that
50 percent of each department's contracts and transactions that are included in the program (i.e. all transactions in amounts under $100,000) will be awarded to certified small businesses that have previously registered with the County.
In adopting the SBE Program, the Board directed the County Administrator to work with County departments to implement the Program and referred the Program to the Internal Operations Committee (IOC) for continuing policy oversight and development of recommendations for program changes, if warranted. For example, in 2006, at the IOC's recommendation, the Board exempted certain limited categories of purchases and services for which departments could not achieve SBE Program goals due to the specialized nature of the transactions and the limited number of providers of those goods and services.
The IOC has provided policy oversight on the both Programs since their inception, including surveying County departments on the implementation of the SBE and Outreach Programs and overseeing the progression to electronic web-based outreach.
The Affirmative Action Officer has historically provided semi-annual status reports (twice annually) to the Internal Operations Committee (IOC) on departmental contracting activity with SBEs. Following the retirement of the County's long term Affirmative Action Officer in Spring 2011, the work responsibilities and critical functions of the position were temporarily assigned to the Assistant Human Resources Director as the Interim Affirmative Action Officer, with staff support from the County Administrator's Office. The County has recently retained the services of its new Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action officer, Mr. Antoine Wilson, who will assume oversight of the program.
On October 8, 2011 the IOC reviewed and accepted the attached report from the County Administrator's Office through the Interim Affirmative Action Officer, and directed staff to forward the report to the full Board of Supervisors for review and approval. The SBE Program Semi-Annual Report for the period January 1 to June 30, 2012 is therefore attached to this memorandum for review, consideration and approval by the Board of Supervisors.
The Small Business Enterprise (SBE) Program Semi-Annual Report for the period January 1 to June 30, 2012 would not be accepted by the Board.