The semi-annual report is a mandate from the DOT and FTA for any organization that receives federal funds to execute transportation projects. If you’re in the business of transportation, you’re quite familiar with the tedious semi-annual DBE report and the inevitable challenges imposed on compliance officers responsible for managing the process. Moreover, even with the advent of technology, many transportation agencies still unfortunately utilize a manual reporting practice which often leads to inaccurate data, wasted time, and a decline in human productivity. There are three additional obstacles that significantly diminish the efforts of the current reporting process which include:

Contract Payment Data

For each semi-annual report, the compliance officer is required to review every contract included within the reporting period of that report. From there, the DBE officer will need to separate the contracts to identify which received federal funds. Next, the compliance officer identifies each prime/subcontractor and determines their DBE certification status. The final step is to review each payment made to the DBE firms, which should equal the total number of awarded dollars for the report. Without a system to automate these components of the reporting process, it will not only be time consuming, but will likely lead to inaccurate data reflected in the final reports. This means there can be no true picture of community impact, which puts the organization at risk and doesn’t move the needle towards the initial intended purpose of DBE programs. 

Outreach

Managing communications among internal transportation teams so there’s clarity on and efficiency with external messaging, is both a time and energy consumer, but is also an essential component of the reporting process. Tracking outreach efforts is vital for several reasons:

• Outreach is a means of communicating with certified businesses regarding upcoming opportunities,
• Outreach is an opportunity to provide workshops, trainings, and other events to increase vendor participation, and
• Outreach ensures engagement with the community where transportation projects are being developed

Community Impact

It is imperative for DBELOs and compliance officers to always keep the impact of their various transportation projects top of mind. 

If, for example, there is a new bus line project in development, a DBELO or compliance officer should understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the community where projects are set to launch. An example consideration is whether the new bus line will require small businesses in the area to shut down until the development is complete. It takes a village to ensure this type of mutually beneficial relationship is realized and also requires regular engagement with small businesses, community leaders, city resources, contractors, and this should all take place prior to breaking ground on the project.

Another reporting consideration that influences community impact for DBE officers is project location. Certain communities would benefit from tracking workforce utilization to intentionally place jobs in the hands of those within the community. This level of “zip code hiring” increases the economic impact to the community where projects are being developed. Transit organizations are usually located in metro areas, and the communities most adversely affected by these projects are typically highly populated by minority residents who are often burdened by pockets of poverty. 

“Rider experience” is a final example of why accounting for community impact is essential to the reporting process. For instance, if a new transportation project requires the relocation of a bus stop, planners and DBE officials must consider community members that may be unfavorably disturbed by the move. Perhaps the project takes place in a community where there are high rates of single parent households, these riders have really early or late shifts at work, and the bus stop that is being relocated was their only or most affordable mode of transportation. These types of scenarios should always be considered. 

Having an automated system to monitor, track and report small and diverse business contracting, workforce utilization, rider experience adjustments, community benefit agreements and all of nuances within a transportation project will undoubtedly improve the vitality of the communities where these projects are being developed.

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In a recent thought-provoking webcast, B2Gnow, the leading supplier diversity, procurement, and grant management software provider, and speaker Kathey Porter, CEO of Porter Brown Associates, teamed up to reveal best practices and useful tips on the topic of The Three P’s of Higher Education Supplier Diversity – People, Policies and Processes. 

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The informational webcast discusses how higher education institutions can be complex organizations, and developing and managing a supplier diversity program that is impactful and small business centric can be challenging and even confusing. 

Therefore, there are key considerations and strategies to consider when building an effective supplier diversity program, for instance: 

• • Determining if you have the right people in place, how to communicate objectives, how to gain allies, and how to develop an accountability process
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• • Understanding the supplier diversity lifecycle, including the who-what-how and the critical elements of tracking and reporting

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Higher education institutions like University of Houston, Eastern Washington University, University of Texas System, University of Chicago and hundreds of others, are turning to the powerful capabilities of supplier diversity management software, like B2Gnow, to support their diversity goals.  From diverse vendor search access to the largest certified supplier database in the world, to data enhancement tools that qualify and quantify current supplier data, to spend analysis capabilities that go deeper to understand diverse supplier data, to construction contract compliance that easily track and report supplier diversity on capital construction contracts, B2Gnow allows supplier diversity professionals to focus on meeting diversity goals, not chasing paper.

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Originally enacted in 1982, the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program is designed to remedy ongoing discrimination and the continuing effects of past discrimination in federally-assisted highway, transit, airport, and highway safety financial assistance transportation contracting markets nationwide. The primary objective of the DBE program is to level the playing field by providing small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals a fair opportunity to compete for federally funded transportation contracts.

USDOT’s Operating Administrations (FHWA, FAA and FTA) distribute substantial funds each year to finance construction projects initiated by state and local governments, public transit and airport agencies. USDOT is responsible for ensuring that firms competing for USDOT-assisted projects are not disadvantaged by unlawful discrimination. The USDOT’s most important tool for meeting this requirement has been its DBE program.

Importantly, under the current DBE program language (the “FAST-ACT”), recipients (such as states, counties, cities, transits, etc.) must set overall project participation goals to represent a “level playing field” – the amount of DBE participation they could realistically expect in the absence of discrimination. This goal must be based on demonstrable evidence of the availability of ready, willing and able DBEs to participate on DOT-assisted contracts. The rule gives recipients substantial flexibility in the methods they choose to set overall DBE participation goals.  There remains a nationwide aspirational goal of 10 percent of project funding.

Section C of the Uniform Report is designed to capture information on current actual payments made to DBEs for work performed on ongoing federally-assisted contracts. This payment data provides a “snapshot” of dollars actually paid to DBEs as compared to dollars committed or awarded to DBEs but not yet paid during the reporting period.

As DBE professionals know too well, the required semi-annual DBE report often consumes the personal and professional lives of those overseeing these transportation initiatives. More specifically the critical elements transit agencies need to consider for timely and accurate reporting of the required semi-annual DBE report, include:

1. A thorough review of every federally funded contract, 
2. Identification of all firms that are certified as DBE,
3. An update on all awards and commitments to the DBE firms, and 
4. The ability to track each payment made to both the prime contractor and all subcontractors.

As one might imagine, this process for a small DBE team within a multi-department organization might mean miscommunication and conflicting perspectives on how all requirements are met and tracked, the oversight of dozens of contracts worth potentially billions of dollars – making effective and accurate [manual] monitoring of every detail a nearly impossible feat.

Community impact is at the heart of all DBE programs and as a result, DBE compliance officials should be equipped with a team and tools to seamlessly manage their efforts to facilitate equity and inclusion in transportation projects.

Effectively complying and supporting federal – and potentially local programs where local funds are used – is a challenging task for any transit authority, large or small. The comprehensive technology offered by B2Gnow and seasoned team make it possible by allowing transit authorities to not only go paperless and grow their programs, but also rapidly generate the required semi-annual DBE report. Moreover, B2Gnow’s powerful software provides transit authorities with the capability to effectively monitor, track, and access key data and reports such as the Compliance Audit Summary, which provides real-time automated DBE certification and compliance tracking including project spend tracking and certified contractor utilization through the entire prime-subcontractor chain.

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