Okaloosa County BOCC — June 17, 2014 — DBE PROGRAM rev 6-2014 — reading text

subcontract portions of work that they might otherwise perform with their own forces); 2. Providing assistance in overcoming limitations such as inability to obtain bonding or financing (e.g., by such means as simplifying the bonding process, reducing bonding requirements, eliminating the impact of surety costs from bids, and providing services to help DBEs, and other small businesses, obtain bonding and financing); 3. Providing technical assistance and other services; 8 9 Carrying out information and communications programs on contracting procedures and specific contract opportunities (e.g., ensuring the inclusion of DBEs, and other small businesses, on recipient mailing lists for bidders; ensuring the dissemination to bidders on prime contracts of lists of potential subcontractors; provision of information in languages other than English, where appropriate); Implementing a supportive services program to develop and improve immediate and long-term business management, record keeping, and financial and accounting capability for DBEs and other small businesses; Providing services to help DBEs, and other small businesses, improve long-term development, increase opportunities to participate in a variety of kinds of work, handle increasingly significant projects, and achieve eventual self-sufficiency; Establishing a program to assist new, start-up firms, particularly in fields in which DBE participation has historically been low; Ensuring distribution of your DBE directory, through print and electronic means, to the widest feasible universe of potential prime contractors; and Assisting DBEs, and other small businesses, to develop their capability to utilize emerging technology and conduct business through electronic media. c. Each time you submit your overall goal for review by the concerned operating administration, you must also submit your projection of the portion of the goal that you expect to meet through race- neutral means and your basis for that projection. This projection is subject to approval by the concerned operating administration, in conjunction with its review of your overall goal. d. You must establish contract goals to meet any portion of your overall goal you do not project being able to meet using race-neutral means. e. The following provisions apply to the use of contract goals: 1. 2. 4. You may use contract goals only on those DOT-assisted contracts that have subcontracting possibilities. You are not required to set a contract goal on every DOT-assisted contract. You are not required to set each contract goal at the same percentage level as the overall goal. The goal for a specific contract may be higher or lower than that percentage level of the overall goal, depending on such factors as the type of work involved, the location of the work, and the availability of DBEs for the work of the particular contract. However, over the period covered by your overall goal, you must set contract goals so that they will cumulatively result in meeting any portion of your overall goal you do not project being able to meet through the use of race-neutral means. Operating administration approval of each contract goal is not necessarily required. However, operating administrations may review and approve or disapprove any contract goal you establish. Your contract goals must provide for participation by all certified DBEs and must not be subdivided into group-specific goals. f. To ensure that your DBE program continues to be narrowly tailored to overcome the effects of discrimination, you must adjust your use of contract goals as follows: 1. If your approved projection under paragraph (c) of this section estimates that you can meet your entire overall goal for a given year through race-neutral means, you must implement your program without setting contract goals during that year. Example to Paragraph (f)(1): Your overall goal for Year | is 12 percent. You estimate that you can obtain 12 percent or more DBE participation through the use of race-neutral measures, without any use of contract goals. In this case, you do not set any contract goals for the contracts that will be performed in Year |. If, during the course of any year in which you are using contract goals, you determine that you will exceed your overall goal, you must reduce or eliminate the use of contract goals to the extent necessary to ensure that the use of contract goals does not result in exceeding the overall goal. \f you determine that you will fall short of your overall goal, then you must make appropriate modifications in your use of race-neutral and/or race- conscious measures to allow you to meet the — overall goal. Example to Paragraph (f)(2): In Year |l, your overall goal is 12 percent. You have estimated that you can obtain 5 percent DBE participation through use of race-neutral measures. You therefore plan to obtain the remaining 7 percent participation through use of DBE goals. By September, you have already obtained 11 percent DBE participation for the year. For contracts let during the remainder of the year, you use contract goals only to the extent necessary to obtain an additional one percent DBE participation. However, if you determine in September that your participation for the year is likely to be only 8 percent total, then you would increase your use of race-neutral and/or race-conscious means during the remainder of the year in order to achieve your overall goal. If the DBE participation you have obtained by race-neutral means alone meets or exceeds your overall goals for two consecutive years, you are not required to make a projection of the amount of your goal you can meet using such means in the next year. You do not set contract goals on any contracts in the next year. You continue using only race-neutral means to meet your overall goals unless and until you do not meet your overall goal for a year. Example to Paragraph (f)(3): Your overall goal for Years | and Year II is 10 percent. The DBE participation you obtain through race-neutral measures alone is 10 percent or more in each year. (For this purpose, it does not matter whether you obtained additional DBE participation through using contract goals in these years.) In Year III and following years, you do not need to make a projection under paragraph (c) of this section of the portion of your overall goal you expect to meet using race-neutral means. You simply use race- neutral means to achieve your overall goals. However, if in Year VI your DBE participation falls short of your overall goal, then you must make a paragraph (c) projection for Year VII and, if necessary, resume use of contract goals in that year. If you obtain DBE participation that exceeds your overall goal in two consecutive years through the use of contract goals (i.e., not through the use of race-neutral means alone), you must reduce your use of contract goals proportionately in the following year. Example to Paragraph (f)(4): |n Years | and Il, your overall goal is 12 percent, and you obtain 14 and 16 percent DBE participation, respectively. You have exceeded your goals over the two-year period by an average of 25 percent. In Year Ill, your overall goal is again 12 percent, and your paragraph (c) projection estimates that you will obtain 4 percent DBE participation through race-neutral means and 8 percent through contract goals. You then reduce the contract goal projection by 25 percent (i.e., from 8 to 6 percent) and set contract goals accordingly during the year. if in Year ill you obtain 11 percent participation, you do not use this contract goal adjustment mechanism for Year IV, because there have not been two consecutive years of exceeding overall goals. In any year in which you project meeting part of your goal through race-neutral means and the remainder through contract goals, you must maintain data separately on DBE achievements in those contracts with and without contract goals, respectively. You must report this data to the concerned operating administration as provided in §26.11. §26.53 What are the good faith efforts procedures recipients follow in situations where there are contract goals? When you have established a DBE contract goal, you must award the contract only to a bidder/offeror that makes good faith efforts to meet it. You must determine that a bidder/offeror has made good faith efforts if the bidder/offeror does either of the following things: a. b. 1. 2. Documents that it has obtained enough DBE participation to meet the goal; or Documents that it made adequate good faith efforts to meet the goal, even though it did not succeed in obtaining enough DBE participation to do so. If the bidder/offeror does document adequate good faith efforts, you must not deny award of the contract on the basis that the bidder/offeror failed to meet the goal. See Appendix A of this part for guidance in determining the adequacy of a bidder/offeror's good faith efforts. In your solicitations for DOT-assisted contracts for which a contract goal has been established, you must require the following: 1. 2. Award of the contract will be conditioned on meeting the requirements of this section; All bidders/offerors will be required to submit the following information to the recipient, at the time provided in paragraph (b)(3) of this section: i. The names and addresses of DBE firms that will participate in the contract; ii. | Adescription of the work that each DBE will perform; ili. The dollar amount of the participation of each DBE firm participating; iv. Written documentation of the bidder/offeror's commitment to use a DBE subcontractor whose participation it submits to meet a contract goal; Vv. Written confirmation from the OBE that it is participating in the contract as provided in the prime contractor's commitment; and vi. If the contract goal is not met, evidence of good faith efforts (see Appendix A of this part); and 3. At your discretion, the bidder/offeror must present the information required by paragraph (b)(2) of this section -- i. Under sealed bid procedures, as a matter of responsiveness, or with initial proposals, under contract negotiation procedures; or ii. At any time before you commit yourself to the performance of the contract by the bidder/offeror, as a matter of responsibility. c. You must make sure ail information is complete and accurate and adequately documents the bidder/offeror's good faith efforts before committing yourself to the performance of the contract by the bidder/offeror. d. If you determine that the apparent successful bidder/offeror has failed to meet the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section, you must, before awarding the contract, provide the bidder/offeror an opportunity for administrative reconsideration. 1. As part of this reconsideration, the bidder/offeror must have the opportunity to provide written documentation or argument concerning the issue of whether it met the goal or made adequate good faith efforts to do so. 2, Your decision on reconsideration must be made by an official who did not take part in the original determination that the bidder/offeror failed to meet the goal or make adequate good faith efforts to do so. 3. The bidder/offeror must have the opportunity to meet in person with your reconsideration official to discuss the issue of whether it met the goal or made adequate good faith efforts to do so. 4. You must send the bidder/offeror a written decision on reconsideration, explaining the basis for finding that the bidder did or did not meet the goal or make adequate good faith efforts to do so. 5. The result of the reconsideration process is not administratively appealable to the Department of Transportation. e. Ina "design-build" or "turnkey" contracting situation, in which the recipient lets a master contract to a contractor, who in turn lets subsequent subcontracts for the work of the project, a recipient may establish a goal for the