State Representative Jim Struzzi has introduced a bill that would reform the standards used for the state’s Small and Disadvantaged Business Program.
Struzzi said yesterday that the program gives small and disadvantaged businesses special considerations, including alternative bonding and progress payments, access to business assistance offices within agencies, and targeted outreach by procurement officials. Current law limits the eligible businesses to those with no more than one-hundred employees across all industry sectors, but Struzzi’s bill would allow the Department of General Services to reform that limit and set new limits according to industry.
Struzzi says the 100-employee limit is “not rational for every industry.”
The bill would also reestablish the authority of the Department of General Services to develop regulations for the state’s related Veteran-Owned Small Business Program.
