A major government contractor is expanding access to disadvantaged small businesses seeking federal work; everything from airport concessions to traffic management systems. The Department of Transportation announced a final rule that modernizes its disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program, which aims to give entrepreneurs facing either social or economic disadvantages a fair shot at competing for transportation contracts in the procurement process.

These changes include:

• The personal net worth threshold for program participants will rise to $1.6 million, up from $1.32 million. The last increase was in 2011, where the limit previously sat at $750,000.
• Excluding retirement assets from personal net worth calculations, so more businesses will be eligible to participate, and it will eliminate the feeling of “too big to be small and too small to be big”.
• The personal net worth cap will now be automatically adjusted for inflation.
• Government also to streamline the certification process, allowing certifiers that interview small businesses to conduct virtual visits, rather than travel out to a business' brick-and-mortar location. This could save certifiers thousands of dollars, as one certifier claims that virtual on-sites save roughly $20,000 in travel costs and decreases application processing time by ten percent.
• An adjustment to the duration used to calculate a company's size to five years when it comes to NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification System) that categorizes businesses. Previously, companies usually calculated their size standards based on three-year’s worth of gross receipts.
• Additional increases in the monitoring of standards for businesses being paid in a timely fashion, which will help alleviate any issues associated with contractors failing to pay sub-contractors promptly.
• Eligibility for the airport concessions DBE program will be streamlined. There are over 50,000 businesses belong to the disadvantaged business program while 3,500 are certified ACDBEs.

(Original Article)