Virginia Legislature Passes Certification Streamlining Bill

The Virginia legislature, which is scheduled to adjourn the 2006 Session tomorrow, passed two identical bills this session (SB662 and HB122) that will improve the operations of the state's supplier diversity program agency. Both bills include language, discussed at a workshop at this year's Public Policy Days, that will streamline certification of small, women and minority owned businesses in Virginia.

The primary objective of the provisions of the bill regarding certification is to eliminate the need for small, women or minority-owned businesses to be certified by more than one qualifying certifying agency in order to do business with the Commonwealth and its localities.

Under this legislation, the Virginia Department of Minority Business Enterprise would certify the certifiers, establishing and applying criteria to judge whether existing state, federal, local and private certifying agencies offer certification standards and procedures that assure businesses meet credible certification criteria.

Once a certifier’s program is okayed by the Department, a business certified by one of the qualifying certifiers would not have to seek additional certification to meet vendor requirements at the state or local level.

This means that, if WBENC or the SBA 8(a) programs are "certified" certifiers and you have one of those certifications, you would automatically be certified by the state to do business with the Commonwealth of Virginia and its localities. If you don't have a certification from a certified certifier, you will still be able to choose to obtain your certification from the state or a locality that offers such a program.

The benefits of this change in Virginia law, which the administration supported and the Governor is expected to sign, are: i)Virginia businesses will spend less time on paperwork and more on generating taxable profits; and ii) the Department of Minority Business Enterprise will spend more time working on supplier development and procurement advocacy and less time on shuffling papers.

If you'd like to see certification streamlined in your state, send me an email at nawbopp at cg2consulting dot com, and I'll send you a memo that includes model language and suggested talking points.

NAWBO members identified the paperwork burdens of certification as a barrier to getting certified.

With your help, we can take this project national and save NAWBO members in every state both time and money!

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga