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Committee advances bill to streamline state certification for minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses
Summary
HB128 would transfer state certification work to the Department of Administrative Services, accept national certifiers and add women- and veteran-owned businesses to an existing tax incentive; the committee gave the bill a 'due pass' recommendation after DOAS counsel said the agency will accept other vetted certifications to avoid extra red tape.
The committee voted to give House Bill 128 a favorable recommendation after Representative Hong presented the governor-backed measure to move state certification for supplier diversity out of the Department of Transportation and into the Department of Administrative Services (DOAS).
Representative Hong said HB128 will streamline state procurement certification and explicitly add women-owned and veteran-owned businesses to existing state supports. "We're essentially making it so that minority owned businesses and now women owned and veteran owned businesses can go straight into the state certification process," Hong said.
Autumn Cole, identified in committee as DOAS general counsel, told members the department plans to accept certifications issued by established national certifying organizations to avoid duplicative reviews and reduce burden on small businesses. "DOAS' plan... is to simply accept these certifications from other well known national certifying organizations," Cole said, adding that DOAS will publish a list of acceptable certifying organizations by policy.
Lawmakers also discussed an existing tax deduction that lets prime contractors deduct 10% of payments to qualifying subcontractors (up to $100,000) and confirmed the measure would extend that incentive to subcontracting with qualifying women- and veteran-owned businesses. Representative Bentley moved to report HB128 with a 'due pass' recommendation; Representative Reese seconded and the motion carried by voice vote.
Next steps: HB128 was reported favorably out of committee and will move to the next stage in the legislative process; DOAS and sponsor said they will finalize implementation details by policy.
