What is dbe

A complete copy of the application form, all supporting documents, and any other information you have submitted to your home state or any other state related to your firm's certification. This includes affidavits of no change and any notices of changes that you have submitted, as well as any correspondences concerning your application or status as a DBE firm.

Any notices or correspondence from states other than your home state relating to your status as an applicant or certified DBE in those states, including facts and all documentation concerning if your firm was denied certification or decertified.

You must submit the Interstate Application Affidavit sworn to by the firm's owners before a person who is authorized by State law to administer oaths executed under penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States. The processing time is approximately 60 days from the date the completed application and support documentation is provided to our office. The Department has a supportive service provider who can assist you in completing the DBE application and support documents.

Please visit our Supportive Services Provider page. The certification approval letter indicates approval of the firm as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise DBE to perform work of specific types. If the applicant fails to provide the missing information within one year, the file is then administratively closed.

In accordance with the regulation, the Department has 90 days to process a complete application. A complete application includes all the requested information submitted by the firm to the DBE Certification Consultant. The processing time starts once all the information the application and all supporting documents are received. Q: How long does the DBE certification period last? As long as a firm continues to meet the standards established in 49 CFR 26, DBE certification is ongoing; however, the firm is required to annually submit an No Change Declaration and supporting documentation by the anniversary date of certification.

The DBE Directory lists the firm's name, address, telephone number, and the type of work the firm has been certified to perform as a DBE.

Q: What are the benefits of being a certified DBE? Department of Transportation i. DBEs may participate in a variety of supportive services such as training and technical assistance if they are construction and consulting firms involved in a road, highway or bridge construction or maintenance related business. The DBE program ensures that federally assisted contracts for highway, transit and aviation projects are made available for small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.

The program is administered by the three modal administrations i. Every three years, STAs are required to set an overall DBE goal that they must either meet, or show that they used good faith efforts to meet, annually.

This goal is in the form of a percentage of federal funds apportioned annually to each STA and is calculated based upon the relative availability of DBE firms as compared to all firms in the relevant geographic market area. STAs that do not meet their goal in any given year, must submit a document to their operating administrations, such as FHWA, identifying and analyzing the reasons why the goal was not met and creating specific steps to correct the problems going forward.

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rendered a decision in that significantly impacted the ability of within that Circuit to set race-conscious measures in implementing their DBE programs. As a result, USDOT issued guidance advising STAs in the Ninth Circuit to suspend the use of race-conscious contract goals until they could be supported by sufficient evidence of discrimination or its effects in the state's contracting market. Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the certifier must make a judgment about the control the socially and economically disadvantaged owner exercises vis-a-vis other persons involved in the business as the certifier do in other situations, without regard to whether or not the other persons are immediate family members.

In determining whether a firm is controlled by its socially and economically disadvantaged owners, the certifier may consider whether the firm owns equipment necessary to perform its work.

However, the certifier must not determine that a firm is not controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals solely because the firm leases, rather than owns, such equipment, where leasing equipment is a normal industry practice and the lease does not involve a relationship with a prime contractor or other party that compromises the independence of the firm.

The certifier must grant certification to a firm only for specific types of work in which the socially and economically disadvantaged owners have the ability to control the firm.

The types of work a firm can perform whether on initial certification or when a new type of work is added must be described in terms of the most specific available NAICS code for that type of work. If the certifier chooses, the certifier may also, in addition to applying the appropriate NAICS code, apply a descriptor from a classification scheme of equivalent detail and specificity. A correct NAICS code is one that describes, as specifically as possible, the principal goods or services which the firm would provide to DOT recipients.

If the certifier Directory does not list types of work for any firm in a manner consistent with this paragraph a 1 , the certifier must update the Directory entry for that firm to meet the requirements of this paragraph a 1 by August 28, The firm bears the burden of providing detailed company information the certifying agency needs to make an appropriate NAICS code designation. If a firm believes that there is not a NAICS code that fully or clearly describes the type s of work in which it is seeking to be certified as a DBE, the firm may request that the certifying agency, in its certification documentation, supplement the assigned NAICS code s with a clear, specific, and detailed narrative description of the type of work in which the firm is certified.

A certifier is not precluded from changing a certification classification or description if there is a factual basis in the record. However, certifiers must not make after-the-fact statements about the scope of a certification, not supported by evidence in the record of the certification action.

A business operating under a franchise or license agreement may be certified if it meets the standards in this subpart and the franchiser or licenser is not affiliated with the franchisee or licensee. In determining whether affiliation exists, the certifier should generally not consider the restraints relating to standardized quality, advertising, accounting format, and other provisions imposed on the franchisee or licensee by the franchise agreement or license, provided that the franchisee or licensee has the right to profit from its efforts and bears the risk of loss commensurate with ownership.

Alternatively, even though a franchisee or licensee may not be controlled by virtue of such provisions in the franchise agreement or license, affiliation could arise through other means, such as common management or excessive restrictions on the sale or transfer of the franchise interest or license.

In order for a partnership to be controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, any nondisadvantaged partners must not have the power, without the specific written concurrence of the socially and economically disadvantaged partner s , to contractually bind the partnership or subject the partnership to contract or tort liability. The socially and economically disadvantaged individuals controlling a firm may use an employee leasing company.

The use of such a company does not preclude the socially and economically disadvantaged individuals from controlling their firm if they continue to maintain an employer-employee relationship with the leased employees.

This includes being responsible for hiring, firing, training, assigning, and otherwise controlling the on-the-job activities of the employees, as well as ultimate responsibility for wage and tax obligations related to the employees. Consideration of whether a firm performs a commercially useful function or is a regular dealer pertains solely to counting toward DBE goals the participation of firms that have already been certified as DBEs. Except as provided in paragraph of this section, the certifier must not consider commercially useful function issues in any way in making decisions about whether to certify a firm as a DBE.

The certifier may consider, in making certification decisions, whether a firm has exhibited a pattern of conduct indicating its involvement in attempts to evade or subvert the intent or requirements of the DBE program.

The certifier must evaluate the eligibility of a firm on the basis of present circumstances. The certifier must not refuse to certify a firm based solely on historical information indicating a lack of ownership or control of the firm by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals at some time in the past, if the firm currently meets the ownership and control standards of this part.

The certifier must not refuse to certify a firm solely on the basis that it is a newly formed firm, has not completed projects or contracts at the time of its application, has not yet realized profits from its activities, or has not demonstrated a potential for success. If the firm meets disadvantaged, size, ownership, and control requirements of this Part, the firm is eligible for certification.

DBE firms and firms seeking DBE certification shall cooperate fully with the certifier requests and DOT requests for information relevant to the certification process. Failure or refusal to provide such information is a ground for a denial or removal of certification. Only firms organized for profit may be eligible DBEs. Not-for-profit organizations, even though controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, are not eligible to be certified as DBEs.

An eligible DBE firm must be owned by individuals who are socially and economically disadvantaged. Except as provided in this paragraph, a firm that is not owned by such individuals, but instead is owned by another firm—even a DBE firm—cannot be an eligible DBE. If socially and economically disadvantaged individuals own and control a firm through a parent or holding company, established for tax, capitalization or other purposes consistent with industry practice, and the parent or holding company in turn owns and controls an operating subsidiary, the certifier may certify the subsidiary if it otherwise meets all requirements of this subpart.

In this situation, the individual owners and controllers of the parent or holding company are deemed to control the subsidiary through the parent or holding company. The certifier may certify such a subsidiary only if there is cumulatively 51 percent ownership of the subsidiary by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.

The following examples illustrate how this cumulative ownership provision works:. Socially and economically disadvantaged individuals own percent of a holding company, which has a whollyowned subsidiary.

The subsidiary may be certified, if it meets all other requirements. Recognition of a business as a separate entity for tax or corporate purposes is not necessarily sufficient to demonstrate that a firm is an independent business, owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. The certifier must not require a DBE firm to be prequalified supplier or contractor as a condition for certification.

Schedule Services. Call Us Now. Professional Application Preparation Services. How are burdens of proof allocated in the certification process?

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