Hispanic Business Women's Alliance - New Program to Help Small Businesses Compete for Government Contracts

May 2010, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a new bonding education program aimed at helping qualified small and disadvantaged businesses compete for government contracting opportunities.

In collaboration with the Surety and Fidelity Association of America (SFAA), the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) will host a series of pilot education workshops to get small businesses bond ready. The start dates and city locations for the pilots are Chicago, May 27; Dallas, June 10; and Atlanta, June 24.

“President Obama, Vice President Biden and I want to ensure that as the economy recovers, small businesses have every opportunity to compete successfully for contracts in the transportation and construction industries,” said Secretary LaHood.

“We think this program will go a long way to provide the type of targeted assistance that small businesses competing in the transportation industry need right now,” said OSDBU Director Brandon Neal. “It will really help level the playing field for smaller companies eager to compete.”

Companies accepted into this program will receive expert guidance from SFAA to help prepare them for bond readiness. Once bonded, companies can land bigger and better contracts without having to rely on a prime contractor, as they’ve been required to in the past. For many small companies, bonding authority signals an important step toward greater independence and opens the door to new opportunities for growth and expansion.

The program includes a 10 week course covering an array of subjects to help small businesses become bondable. At the end of 10 weeks, businesses are paired with local bond producers to work side by side in the bonding process.

The businesses that are expected to attend include small businesses, Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, 8(a) firms, Woman Owned Businesses, Historically Underutilized Business Zone firms, Veteran Owned Small Businesses and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses.

About the Small Business Health Care Tax
Starting this year – indeed starting retroactively to January 1, 2010 – a new small business health care tax credit will be in effect that will provide a 35% tax credit on health premiums, with the credit rising to 50% in 2014. A similar tax credit will even be available to non-profits. This type of small business tax relief – long championed by Senator Durbin and many other members of Congress from both parties – is targeted to where the barriers and lack of coverage are the greatest. The $40 billion in tax credits over ten years will be aimed at many of the four million small businesses with under 25 employees (just 53 percent of firms this size provide coverage), and will be most generous for the firms with 3 to 9 workers, whose rate of offering health insurance has fallen from 58 percent in 2002 to just 46 percent in 2009.

A small business with 12 full-time employees that fully paid for health care could see tax relief of over $25,000 in 2010 – and over $40,000 in 2014. That’s not a lot for Wal-Mart perhaps, but it could be enough to help support a new hire, a critical new investment, or health coverage for part-time workers at hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country.
MORE INFO: www.ushcc.com