Sagacious Think

out of the woods?

At a recent conference, representatives from various federal and local agencies spoke on the state of the economy, suggestions for contracting with the government.  In the event that you were not sitting next to me, I wanted to pass along the great information that I learned.

Most of the money that has been earmarked as stimulus funding has not arrived yet, the roll out is over twelve to eighteen months – of the $20B coming, $10B has been set aside, and only $8B of that $10B has been spent.  Santa Clara County which has the most stimulus money allocated towards it, is getting $187M in funds.

To be considered for DGS projects your company must be registered with the Department of General Services (DGS)  You can register with the Department of General Services – eProcurement  through an online process that takes less than 20 minutes to complete – the link is here.  Note if your intend is to subcontract to other companies seeking these contracts, you still need to register as the small business or disable veteran status quotas that these contracts may need to fill can only be met by registered contractors.

There is no fee to register and the site allows suppliers to upload bids/proposals in response to applicable online solicitations.  The attached PDF walks you through the process.

State agencies are required to award at least 25% of their annual contracting dollars to small business and at least 3% to DVBEs.  In order for your company to be considered, it must be registered with the State.

A Small Business must meet the following criteria to qualify:

• must be independently owned and operated
• cannot be dominant in the field of operations
• must have its principal office located in California
• must have its owners or officers domiciled in California together with any affiliates:
• business of less than 100 employees and average gross revenue of less than $12M over the previous 3 years

Learn about the California program  that increases business opportunities for small business and disabled veteran business enterprise here.

The California State Contracts Register (CSIR) lists government solicitations – link here Even better you can sign up for a free email that alerts you to solicitations that match your interests.

Caltrans spoke of some upcoming projects and mentioned that they piggyback on the DGS register, so to work with them make sure you have the appropriate registration in place.

Both representatives spoke of registering with the Central Contractor Registration.

Show Me the Money – sites that show where the money is going

Recovery, is a non-government site tracks the stimulus funds across the country (not exclusive to California), identifies projects by type, size, etc. and contains a great deal of information.

This California site showing stimulus funds.  This link is a Google map showing stimulus fund by location and further broken down into type of project funds were invested in.

Other Resources

SBA’s link page for the 2009 Recovery Act

The SBA representative mentioned a new loan rolled out recently to help viable companies that had cash flow difficulties.  It is part of America’s Recovery Program and is a $35,000 loan.  The loan is interest free to the company (the SBA picks up the tab) and the SBA also picks up the fees.  Additionally the SBA guarantees the loan to the bank, making it very attractive to both parties.  Further, the first years payments are deferred and then the repayment is scheduled over 5 years.  To qualify they are looking at otherwise viable companies that because of the current lending situation cannot access the funds they need.  Check the website for more details.  The representative also added because its so knew – awareness of the program is not there and backs are tentative in the roll-out, but that should change as understanding of the program increases.

Also mentioned was The Federal Technology Center a non profit established to “promote economic development by facilitating technology transfer between government and the private sector by helping small business successfully complete for government contracts.”

All encouraged companies to take advantage of the services offered by the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) they offer training classes and individual consulting.

A final non-government resource provide was Business Matchmaking as a way to connect small businesses.