Small/Microand Minority/Women Business Enterprise Advisory CommitteeMeeting
Thursday,April 28, 2016
11:00am– 12:30pm
1498NE 2 Avenue, 2ndFloor Conference Room
MEETINGAGENDA
Call to Order / Introductions
Themember introduced themselves including their posts andrepresentations.
Mr.Ronald Frazier, Chair
Ms.Michelle Hicks-Levy – Office of Economic Opportunity
Ms.Denise Mincey-Mills – Office of Economic Opportunity
Mr.Jeff James – School Board Attorney`s Office
Ms.Alicia Hawkins
Mr.Jorge Alvarez
Ms.Karen Moore
Ms.Marian Hasty
Roll Call
The New Advisory Board Member – Lilliam Lopez – Superintendent’s Appointee, was absent and therefore they moved on to the next agenda.
Approval of Minutes – 1/21/16
Thechair person delegated that there being no quorum, they could notread the previous minutes but he advised the members to read them andsend them back to staff for corrections to be made.
Public Comment
Therechairman said that there was no public comment.
OEO Update – Michelle Hicks-Levy, Executive Director
General Updates
B2Gcomponent system
-Itwas notified that B2G component system is still working oncertification of the firms and receiving recertificationapplications. This is because certification started in April, 2013hence, most firms certifications are expiring and need to berecertified. They receive around 20-30 recertification applicationsas well as new applications. They are also working on other modelssuch as outreach model which currently functional. In addition,contract is in progress as well as contract pre-qualifications.
Goalsetting model
-Michellesaid that the members will be updated on the progress of the goalsetting model.
TheOEO staff members will be attending training in Scottsdale Arizona,the following week to gather information and thus give a completereport on the model.
Vendors
Gorgeraised a question on the pressure exerted to the vendors based on thecontracts that they have been given in addition to the performance.He claimed that they are not as quick as they should be. Since thenumber is large, there is around 158 pre-qualified members presently.They have decided to have a pre-qualification workshop scheduled forMay, 17th,2016. The fliers for the workshop will be emailed to other firms andorganizations that they work with to help with its outreach.
CommunityOutreach
Communityoutreach will continue. So far, 30 workshop trainings for theyear,2016 are underway.
MaintenanceOperations – Mr. Carl Nicoleau
Thestaffs have been working on contract compliance model for some time,the challenge being getting reports in the format that B2G needs inorder to upload into the system. The staff is also working with theIT department for the last month and has sent several samples but notin the right format for B2G.
Procurement Management Services – Ms. Melody Thelwell
Ms. Melody Thelwell noted that there is fierce procurement strategicplan for increasing small business enterprises the micro andminority participation in school based contracts. There would be ameeting at the superintendent’s conference room, 10.30 am, onMonday, the following week to roll out strategies that will beutilized. All members were invited as they are going to discussissues such as: realizing areas of weakness with the outreach model,technical system workshops, sharing of data, how to have each monthlytrack, internal issues, how to increase participation and capacity ofvendors. Moreover, the issue of handling vendors will be discussed.In line with this, there will be a vendor workshop which has beenrecommended and scheduled to be held on May, 23 rd.
Therewill be diversity training on procurement, on 1stJuly.
Certificationshave been done on a monthly basis from January, 15thto March 16th.Thedocument was to be emailed to community stakeholders after themeeting. A decision was made to have a representative for theupcoming outreach on the minority diversity council business expo.The outreach would touch on architects and engineers which was a goodrecommendation.
Theweek that follows would be a business week and vendors are to comeand the staff will send a representative.
OnMay, 17th, there will be a pre-qualification workshop. Procurementmanagement will talk about SBE agenda to determine as to whether theyare satisfied or not. They will then talk about compliancedashboards. The certification should be broken by ethnicity as thereseems to have been three companies awarded contracts.
Theyear 1 and 2 GOB awards were discussed updating the complaints fromvendors, such as payments. So far, the staff has received 14complaints that need to be addressed. There should also be a reviewof small business participation.
OtherMatters
Therewas a discussion on the completed projects such as mass academy.Questions were raised on the ownership and a clarification needs tobe done on the same. They need to show the documentation to provecompliance. They recommended that the issue on dual certificationshould be addressed as there is a process followed and penalties.
AwardingContracts
Vendorsshould be classifies according to bids.
African-Americanenterprises are coming up and being awarded for various works. Sofar, there are seven categories thus trending in the right direction.There should be diversity in vendors, identifying them andencouraging them to bid. The staff should continue to monitor theprocess of awarding contracts.
Thechallenge in procurement is the low number of staff. Therefore, thisissue needs to be presented to the committee. Internal control andstaffing should be looked into by the committee.
Toupgrade and improve performance, manual technology operations shouldbe minimized.
Thepurchase orders completed were named (1458 orders). They are updatedeach month immediately an invoice comes in. This enables them to showthe position of spending. There is a tracking system that shows thespent amount in the procurement department. Purchase orders updatefor March and other months is present in the system. There was arequest for income and expense account to be presented in details,the following meeting.
Moreover,the staff looked at the certifies SBE in the main categories such asInformation Technology, maintenance, presentation, food and nutritionand others district offices and having call centers. The report isusually presented on quarterly basis.
Footnutrition
Foodnutrition is composed of big companies coming in. The staff willensure they have mandatory SBE goal of 5%/10%.
Therewas a question on whether there is a way to show which company isinvolved in appropriate category such as transport. The answer thatwas provided is that there is a backup detail data. The staff istargeting SBEs that have not got any work by pulling from the systemthrough workshops where they get the satisfaction records fromvendors through questionnaires.
InformationTechnology
Anoutreach is already targeted for information technology where theyneed more firms to come in especially in hardware, software, wiring,audio-visual and telecommunications. The problem was noted that thedistrict usually used only 4 brands Dell, Lenovo, Nexxon and HP.Several of them do not have local minority representation to haveservices.
Itis a requirement by local authority to have local minority own firmshence when the bid comes up the firms have to make sure there is alocal representative if they need to play. It gives the school aswell as district offices, an access to someone instead of callingcustomer service which is time wasting.
Several contracts are expectedto come up in summer such as hardware, wiring, tele-communication andinformation technology. The bidding is done in advance because theyget reimbursement from the federal government. This is an applicationprocess that has to go through by December, 2016. Evaluation, termsand conditions for contracts, contractor discipline policy inconjunction with school boards will trigger the steps for compliance.
School Board Attorney’s Office –Mr. Jeff James
Committee Bylaws
Committeecan adapt Bylaws in its operations. For instance, Absence procedureIn case of more than three consecutive absence then the person shouldbe removed from the committee and replace. This Bylaw will thereforehelp reforming the committee.
Goal Setting Procedures
Inthe district there is a goal setting committee where they haveprocedure manuals. There are three different areas of setting goals.They are self-contracting and self-consulting goals, Share capitalmarket size, services independence and SBE/MBE perfect points. Theseare the procurement initiatives in deciding which goals to be setdepending on the availability and scope of the services. The goalsetting committee meetings are on the 1stand 3rdThursdays of every month.
Achallenge that was posed is that there should be a detailedmethodology of the goal setting procedures. The specific steps thatinstruct different departments should be a part of the writtenpolicy.
Theynoted that there is a mathematical formulae used as a national modelfor each scope of work that needs to relate to different professionalservices. Aspiration and mandatory goals are also use and should beincluded in details in the policy.
Upcoming Meetings
Next Regular Meeting – Thursday, May 19, 2016 @11am (1498 NE 2nd Avenue, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Miami, FL)
Therewas a recommendation to shift meetings from monthly to after a periodof every two months. A memo should be done on this to enable votingsince there was a voting before and the majorities were update on thealready set dates.
Adjournment
Havingno other business, the chairperson adjourned the meeting by thankingthe staff members. The next meeting will be based on the number ofvotes that will be presented.