AGC Participates in DOT DBE Meeting

AGC was invited to participate in a stakeholders meeting this week called by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to look into questions about the effectiveness of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program. The meeting was held in response to a DOT Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report critical of the success of the program over its 30-year history. The OIG report said state DOTs, which are charged with administering the program, are focused on certifying firms for inclusion in the program, but not their success once in the program. OIG noted that only a small percentage of the certified firms actually participate and that those few firms have been in the program for ten years or more. DOT was interested in hearing from stakeholders about how this outcome could be improved. AGC pointed out that the program should be focused on quality not quantity. Increasing the number of certified firms and the resulting increases in goals does not achieve the program’s objective. A better measure of success would, for example, be business development factors such as the ability to obtain bonding, insurance, reputation, submitting winning quotes, repeat business, financing, and other business factors. AGC suggested that developing metrics to measure the progress of DBEs in the program in meeting these goals should be a DOT objective. The meeting involved a wide variety of stakeholders including DBE advocacy groups, state DOTs and others with direct knowledge of how the program operates. U.S. DOT is interested in making improvements in the program to respond to the criticism from the OIG. The recently released adjustments to the DBE implementation rules were not the focus of the meeting and were generally not discussed.