Status Report: Small Business Encouragement Program

The OSD over the past three years has balanced its focus to include not only Operations related new construction and major renovations, but also the District's Small Business Enterprise goods and service expenditures through its Lawson financial software.  The OSD was able to account for a record of over 34.5 million dollars spent with small business enterprises by our divisions, departments, and school sites.  When measuring formal Goods and Services Bid Opportunities, 33.4% of the eligible expenditures were earned by SBE vendors.

Construction managers awarded an additional 4.5 million dollars of subcontracts to small, women and minority owned businesses (3.4 million dollars of which was spent with women and/or minority owned business subcontractors) as part of the District's new construction and renovation program.  The overall total of 4.5 million dollars of subcontractor bid awards won by OSD registered vendors represents 39.9% of all subcontractor bid awards.

The entire encouragement program, including construction, goods and services, utilized 211 vendors, a program record, that are registered in the Office of Supplier Diversity database.

The Annual Report also reflects 170 schools/centers and over $781,153 as FY2015 outcomes from the "Use A Small Business" School Campaign, an almost 10% increase in dollars spent over FY2014.