The County Board for Hennepin County has recently approved an expansion of the county's Small Business Enterprise program. The program now includes participation goals for minority-owned businesses (MBEs) and women-owned businesses (WBEs).
The county's Small Business Enterprise program has an existing utilization goal of 25 percent for professional and construction services. Specific goals for MBEs and WBEs will be now established on a per-contract basis, going forward. The establishment of these goals is expected to begin by the middle of 2018.
The changes to the Small Business Enterprise program come after the recent release of the 2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study, which found that while 10.61 percent of Hennepin County procurement dollars during the study period (2011 to 2016) went to MBEs and WBEs, if the share had been based on overall availability of such businesses, it could have been increased to 17.68 percent.
More information about the county's Small Business Enterprise program is available at https://www.hennepin.us/business/work-with-henn-co/contracting-with-hennepin-county
Read the full text of the 2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study at https://mn.gov/admin/disparity-study/resources/reports/
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