Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Senate Votes to Extend Small Business Reserve Program
The Maryland Senate passed legislation (SB 71) to extend the sunset on the Small Business Reserve Program until 2016. The vote was 46-0.
The program was created in 2004. It requires 23 state agencies to structure their purchases to reserve at least 10 percent of their procurements to only be bid on by certified small businesses. The program was extended in 2007, but is scheduled to sunset October 1, 2010. In fiscal year 2008, $131 million in contracts were awarded under the program.
The Maryland Chamber of Commerce supports this bill. Most Maryland businesses, and most members of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, have fewer than 50 employees. This legislation expands opportunities for Maryland small businesses to compete for state procurements.
“Unbundling state procurements increases competition for state projects and services, while strengthening Maryland’s small business sector,” Maryland Chamber Vice President of Government Affairs Ron Wineholt said.
The bill now awaits action in the House Health and Government Operations Committee. For more information, contact Ron Wineholt at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
I am not sure what the statistics say, but we have not found the program to be very useful for professional service firms. Most of the reserves seem to us to be reserved for landscaping, maintenance and more labor intensive uses. Some of the bigger agencies do not want to futz with small companies on the professional services side and prefer the bigger companies as primes. Even as subs there is often no incentive for bigger professional service firms to take on a certified small business as that is not made a requirement nor even a factor in the selection, unless they are also a minority and then fall under the MBE program.