California Assembly Bill 1574 (also known as the Leveraging State Procurement for an Inclusive Economic Recovery Act of 2021), which was approved by the Governor in October of 2021 and has been passed into law, would require state agencies to make ongoing and continuous efforts to expand the pool small business enterprises (SBEs) that are contracted with by the state by seeking out SBEs that have not yet done or rarely do business with the state.
In addition, the bill would expand the pool of persons authorized to bring a civil action for a fraudulent representation that a DVBE or SBE has performed a commercially useful function on a public contract. That pool would now include any city attorney, county attorney or county counsel, district attorney, or Attorney General.
AB 1574 also integrates and streamlines the work of the California Small Business Advocate and the DVBE Advocate (which are managed through the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs, respectively) by requiring them to collaborate on improving small business participation.
The bill additionally makes some changes to Target Area Contract Preference Act (TACPA) programs, including by expanding the definition of "person with high risk of unemployment" to include "low-income individuals; Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians; individuals with disabilities; older individuals; ex-offenders; [and] transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals."
Read the bill at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1574https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1574.
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