A bipartisan bill from Assemblymembers Frank Bigelow, R-O'Neals, and Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, would increase to $500,000 the upper limit that a state agency may award a contract for goods, services or information technology without complying with some competitive bidding requirements.
The government code currently requires that for contracts estimated in value between $5,000 and $250,000 a state agency may award contracts to small businesses and disabled veteran business enterprises "as long as the agency obtains price quotations from two or more certified small businesses, including microbusinesses, or from two or more disabled veteran business enterprises."
AB 2358 from Bigelow and Wood would effectively double the upper limit.
There are other new bills that would have ramifications for California's small business designation:
- SB 1176 would change the definition of a small business, for contracting and procurement purposes, to a business that earns no more than $30 million in annual gross receipts. The cap is currently $10 million.
- AB 2270 would create a statewide contractor bonding program that would, according to the Legislative Counsel's Office, "to be administered by the Office of Small Business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Services, for the purpose of enabling participating contractors to meet any applicable bid, payment, or performance bonding requirements for public contracts with state agencies. This bill would authorize the office to act as guarantor on surety bonds for participating contractors on contracts with state agencies and require the office to provide specified technical assistance to participating contractors. The bill would authorize the office to charge participating contractors fees for the provision of these services, not to exceed the amount necessary to cover the costs incurred in the administration of these provisions."
