Small Business and Local Workforce Development
Our contractors and professional services vendors are an extension of MSD’s employee base in that they provide a range of skills that augment MSD’s staff capabilities on an as-needed basis. In all aspects of contracting, the participation of small business enterprises (SBEs) is of particular interest to MSD. Hamilton County Commissioners approved a resolution accepting the SBE program in August 2009 and authorized MSD to be the first entity to implement it. In 2010, MSD worked with officials from the Hamilton County Office of Small Business Development to establish the SBE Program Rules and Guidelines.
Since 2008, MSD has tracked its performance against the SBE Program aspiration goals. The figure below summarizes our performance in the first half of 2010.
MSD Performance Against SBE Program Goals
SBE Participation In: | SBE Program Goal | MSD Performancea |
---|---|---|
Construction Contracts | 30 percent | 7.6 percent |
Commodities and General Services Contracts | 15 percent | 7.1 percent |
Professional Services Contracts | 10 percent | 19.6 percent |
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In addition, knowing that Project Groundwork would require many contracting and professional-service resources, MSD commissioned a study to look at local contractor and professional capacity and how it might be impacted by upcoming infrastructure projects. The scope of the study included a review of regional resource needs, since other Consent Decree programs and other large projects within a 250-mile radius would be competing for the same resources. The study concluded with several findings that describe a significant shortage in resource capacity:
- The experience of local contractors and consultants does not typically include larger scale projects, such as the infrastructure projects that Project Groundwork will include.
- Resource shortages are estimated to reach 8 to 12 percent by 2018.
- MSD will see the greatest challenge in meeting the 30 percent SBE participation goal in construction, due to lack of SBE representation in specialty trades.
Because MSD’s wet weather program is anticipated to require a large percentage of the available regional resources, we have begun to work with a variety of local educational institutions and agencies to ensure that our workforce is ready to meet the demand. For example, in October 2009, MSD hosted a workshop to present “best practices” to help mentor and develop small local engineering and architectural design firms. Through the program, MSD hopes to develop a strong base of local businesses while supporting economic development in Hamilton County. Key future efforts include economic inclusion initiatives with professional service providers while also expanding to construction providers. To monitor the effectiveness of our SBE program, we are developing a system to track, monitor and report our progress.