The objective of this report is to recognize the District's effort to reinvest tax dollars into the Tampa Bay area's small business community.  On a periodic basis, the Office of Supplier Diversity (OSD) captures the performance of the District staff and its prime contractors in the utilization of small, women and/or minority owned businesses.  The value of this report provides the Board and public a measurement of the District's program efficiency and the response to the District's performance expectation.

Although the OSD had its continued focus on Facilities related new construction and major renovations, the District's ability to track its Small Business Enterprise goods and service expenditures through its Lawson financial software has continued to reflect the foundation for future anticipated growth. The OSD was able to account for over 19.1 million dollars spent with small business enterprises by our divisions, departments, and school sites for the same subject period, an increase of 24% or 4 million dollars, over fiscal year 2011.

Construction managers awarded an additional 2.1 million dollars of subcontracts to small, women and minority owned businesses as part of the district's new construction and renovation program.  The 2.1 million dollars of subcontractor bid awards to small, women and minority owned businesses represents 18% of all subcontractor bid awards during the subject period.

The entire encouragement program, including construction, goods and services, utilized 168 vendors that are registered in the Office of Supplier Diversity database.  A parallel measurement of the program's continued growth is that the OSD's database of certified small businesses increased by 20% during the subject period.