Acquisition Hour: Growing Your Small Business With the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program

In Wisconsin, a number of local government entities including Milwaukee County, WisDOT, MMSD, Dane County and the City of Madison, require participation from Disadvantaged Business Enterprises in their procurement process. Both Woman owned and Minority owned businesses can potentially qualify for this program.

The Unified Certification Program (UCP) allows applicants for the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program to apply only once for a DBE certification that will be honored by all recipients in the state. In Wisconsin, a number of local government entities including Milwaukee County, WisDOT, MMSD, Dane County and the City of Madison, require participation from Disadvantaged Business Enterprises in their procurement process.

The DBE program targets Socially and Economically Disadvantaged firms.  Under the DBE program, woman owned businesses are considered “disadvantaged”.

This certification can be of significant advantage for firms working with government entities that utilize the DBE program.  For example, the DBE program sets aside part of federal highway and transit funds with persons who qualify as disadvantaged small business operators.

For the current fiscal year the goals were calculated at 12.32% for Federal Highway, 6.04% for Airport Construction project and 1.10% for Transit.  WisDOT invests $600-700 million annually in federal and state dollars for highway, airport and transit projects.  These funds translate into millions of dollars in transportation-related contracts and project work for DBE firms.

In this webinar you will learn about:

• Eligibility requirements
• Application process
• Which government entities use the DBE
• Leveraging your DBE certification

Speaker: Benjamin Blanc, Wisconsin Procurement Institute (WPI)

This webinar is eligible for 1 CPE credit.

To view a schedule of all upcoming webinars CLICK HERE