AB 1218: Public contracts: disabled veteran business enterprise.

Existing law requires a state agency, department, officer, or other state governmental entity, to meet an annual statewide participation goal of not less than 3% for disabled veteran business enterprises for specified contracts entered into by the awarding department during the year. The administering agency for the California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program is the Department of General Services. Existing law requires the Director of General Services to adopt written policies and guidelines establishing a uniform process for state contracting that provides a disabled veteran business enterprise participation incentive to bidders.

This bill would require a greater participation incentive to be provided to a prime contractor who owns a disabled veteran business enterprise, as specified, and has not previously entered into any contracts with the state as a prime contractor, and to a disabled veteran business enterprise that employs a workforce that is more than 50% veterans or that has not previously entered into any contracts with the state. The bill would require an awarding department to consider whether greater disabled veteran business enterprise participation in excess of 3% should be required on its contracts.

Existing law requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to maintain complete records of its promotional efforts to promote the program and to establish a system to track the effectiveness of its promotional efforts.

This bill would require the department to maintain additional information relating to its promotional efforts, as specified.

Existing law requires a prime contractor who entered into a subcontract with a disabled veteran business enterprise to make certain disclosures to the awarding department after completion of the contract.

This bill would require the awarding department that receives this information to maintain those records for a minimum of 5 years, as specified. The bill would require every awarding department to establish a procedure to ensure the accuracy and completeness of those records. The bill would further require a contractor who subcontracts with disabled veteran business enterprises to comply with additional requirements when providing its certification of expenditures to an awarding department, as specified.

Existing law requires each awarding department to appoint an agency Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program Advocate. Existing law requires the agency Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program Advocate to, among other things, assist certified disabled veteran business enterprises in participating in that agencys contracting process.

This bill would additionally require the advocate to maintain records of the promotional efforts hosted or attended by the advocate, as specified.

Existing law requires a department, as defined under the State Contract Act, to report on contracting activity containing specified information.

This bill would require a department, as defined, to establish guidelines for reporting multiyear contracts. The bill would make other minor, technical changes to the reporting requirements under the program.