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Ohio's PARTA announces goals for helping DBEs win public contracts

The Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority, which serves Portage County, Ohio, has recently announced its goals for assisting disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs).

For fiscal years 2017 through 2019, PARTA has a goal of spending 3.04 percent of federal dollars moving through PARTA on DBEs in the contracting process. The documentation relating to this goal is available on PARTA's website, at http://www.partaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DBE-GOAL-Federal-Fiscal-Year-2017-2019.pdf. 80 percent of this total will be reached through race-neutral methods, with the remaining 20 percent to use race-conscious methods.

PARTA has a number of projects upcoming and ongoing during this period which are or will be federally-assisted and thus subject to these DBE participation goals, including a compressed natural gas station, fleet maintenance projects, a $4 million bus station next year, upgrades to wifi access on the buses, a $1 million bus storage facility, and the purchase of new buses. 

More informtion about PARTA's DBE program can be found in their DBE Program Plan, available at http://www.partaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DBE-PROGRAM-Revised-February-2012.pdf. It enumerates requirements, structure, good-faith effort procedures, enforcement and payment mechanisms, goal setting methodologies, and the like.