The end of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program is getting closer. The DBE program presumes women and minority-owned firms are disadvantaged and sets goals for them to be awarded at least 10% of the value in federal contracts. In a well-reasoned and compelling decision, the U.S. District Court for

The Department of Transportation (DOT) recently published a notice in the Federal Register of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to amend the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and the Airport Concession Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) regulations.  87 Fed. Reg. 43620 (July 21, 2022). This proposal is the first NPRM update since 2014.  While the DOT was originally scheduled

In December 2020, the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) amended the small business size limit under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program (section 1101(b) of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Pub. L. 114-94, Dec. 4, 2015).  The rule, which goes into effect on January 13, 2021, increases the DBE gross receipts cap (averaged over the firm’s previous three fiscal years) to $26,290,000 for Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) related work. This inflationary-based adjustment is an increase over the prior gross receipts cap of $23,980,000 enacted in 2015. The effect of this rule, which is “not considered a significant economic impact on a substantial number of size entities”, is to allow “some small businesses to continue to participate in the DBE programs by adjusting for inflation.” This adjustment should provide relief for some DBEs that were close to exceeding the limits from 2018-2020.
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