Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program.

Under existing law, the administering agency for the California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program is the Department of General Services, except in the case of contracts for professional bond services. Existing law requires the Director of General Services to adopt written policies and guidelines establishing a uniform process for state contracting to provide a disabled veteran business enterprise (DVBE) participation incentive to bidders, which all state agencies are required to use when awarding contracts. Existing law requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to perform designated activities in connection with the California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program, including maintaining complete records of its promotional efforts, and tracking the effectiveness of its efforts to promote the program with periodic surveys of newly certified DVBEs to determine specified information about the DVBE's experience with the program. This bill would require the records of the department's promotional efforts to include specified information about the business attending or participating in those promotional efforts. The bill would delete the periodic survey requirement and instead would require the department to compare a list of businesses that participate in promotional efforts with a list of those businesses that become newly certified DVBEs, and those that become prime contractors or subcontractors with the state. Existing law requires an awarding department, upon completion of an awarded contract for which a commitment to achieve a DVBE goal was made, to require the prime contractor that entered into a subcontract with a DVBE to certify to the awarding department specified information relating to amounts paid under the contract, as specified. This bill would require an awarding department to maintain all records of the information provided by the prime contractor pursuant to those provisions and to retain the records for a minimum of 6 years after collection. The bill would establish appropriate review procedures for those records to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the award amounts and paid amounts reported.