Olympia – Washington’s small businesses will soon get more help in bidding for state contracts thanks to a successful measure (House Bill 1770) signed into state law by Gov. Chris Gregoire earlier today.
“This is a good start on making sure that more small businesses have a better chance of winning state contracts,” said Rep. Bob Hasegawa, the Seattle Democrat who sponsored the bill.
Hasegawa, who serves as vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee, said he originally proposed giving Washington’s small businesses a bidding preference of five percent in competitions for state contracts, and emphasized that even though his bill was amended in the Senate, he still considers it a victory, albeit not quite as large a victory as he originally sought.
“You better believe I’ll be back with the bidding preference again,” Hasegawa said. “When you realize that over 90 percent of the businesses in our state are small, it only makes sense to help them be more competitive in the bidding process against large corporations and out-of-state companies.”
Not only would Hasegawa’s original version of the bill have required a five percent bidding preference to the bids of in-state small businesses, it would have also provided a bid preference of up to five percent to in-state businesses that are not small, but that do subcontract with small businesses.
However, after a series of amendments in the Senate, the details of the bill signed by the governor are as follows:
- Technical assistance will be given to small businesses by providing vendor information about bid-solicitation requirements.
- State purchasing agencies will keep records of awarded contracts to registered small businesses.
- State purchasing agencies will submit reports every two years on the effects the technical assistance is having on the small businesses (subject to appropriated funds in 2012).
- The Department of General Administration (GA) will develop a model plan for state agencies so that:
- More small businesses register in the state’s common vendor registration and bid notification system.
- More of these registered small businesses receive state contracts.
- A bigger percentage of state dollars is invested in contracts awarded to registered small businesses.
- State purchasing agencies that don’t adopt this model plan will create a plan of their own that has the same goal as the model plan, which is to have more small businesses receiving state contracts and increase the percentage of funds invested on goods and services from small businesses by at least 50 percent in 2013, and 100 percent in 2015.
- GA will also create a web-based information system to track the effects of the technical assistance on the small businesses receiving state contracts, and to make this system available to all state purchasing agencies by Dec. 31, 2013 (subject to appropriated funds in 2012).
Hasegawa said that he’ll keep pushing for a bidding preference. He pointed out that the strategy of bidding preferences for in-state businesses has proven effective in many other states, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, and Wyoming,
“The bidding preference would undoubtedly make a difference in our economy if we just give our small businesses the chance,” added the lawmaker. “Maybe the 2012 legislative session will be the year for a majority of my colleagues to see the light on this excellent, commonsense idea.”