Senator Curren Price: Advocate for Minority Businesses
Senator Curren Price,
Representing the 26th Senate District
By Cheryl Hentz
In order for the Disadvantaged Business Enterprises program to succeed and DBE businesses themselves to not only thrive, but grow, they need involvement from the business community for sure. But they also need a helping hand from local, state and federal government. In California, DBEs and the small and minority business community as a whole, have no greater friend than Senator Current Price.
When he first joined the Assembly in 2006, Price was appointed to the Senate Select Committee on Procurement. His thought at the time was to focus on how the state does or doesn’t do business with small businesses and to work toward making the state a more proactive member in encouraging and implementing full diversity in its procurement and business contracting practices.
“There was a lot of pressure from various minority business organizations and from the Third House as well, where they were expressing frustration with Caltrans and its prolonged application of race-conscious contracting goals and full implementation of their proposed DBE mixed component program,” Price said. “So that was certainly an important part and the impetus towards my agitation, if you will, and motivation in trying to bring some clarity to the problem.”
“Several months ago Caltrans advertised several contracts totaling almost $30 million with no reflection of race-conscious goals. So there was concern from many minorities, not just the Black caucus. The Latino caucus; the Asian-Pacific caucus; we all were concerned about the level of participation or non-participation in contracting, especially with Caltrans but also with other agencies and departments,” Price continued. “It’s actually been a source of concern for minorities who provide good and services about what they perceive to be the failure, inability, or even lack of commitment (by Caltrans) to really encourage and facilitate greater diversity in the procurement process.
So he made a priority out of seeing that attention is focused on making certain that, especially in this time of economic revitalization, all businesses have an opportunity to focus in the programs that are designed to assist small and disadvantaged businesses.
“We were able to encourage Caltrans to pull back those contracts to make sure that the DBE goals wereincluded,” Price said. “Out of that $30 million I think we were able to pull back about $12 million in contracts to make certain that they were in full compliance with DBE goals.”
For Caltrans’ part, the department believes it has made efforts to get more DBE involvement in the bidding and procurement process, but it’s not enough, according to Price.
“I think certainly there’s people over there who understand and appreciate the need to move forward in a very positive and aggressive way, but in August of 2008, for example, Caltrans received its approval of the waiver in terms of the goals that have to be set, and while Caltrans has indicated that it’s going to be moving forward with these race-conscious measures or goals, there’s still not a lot of evidence that that’s occurring,” Price said. “Because of that I think a lot of businesses are understandably concerned.”
Price recognizes, however, that there could be a combination of things contributing to the delays in implementation of the measures, one of which is budget problems at the state level.
“That certainly plays a part in it, but Caltrans has sort of been prolonging the return of race-conscious contract goals. At least many feel they’ve been dragging their feet. I think their announcements, retractions, delays, and what have you, have created some confusion and distrust toward them within the minority contracting community. And it’s been at a cost of millions of dollars in missed contracting opportunities,” he said. “So I think we just have to keep the pressure on, and we have to keep finding ways to encourage, incentivize and hold these departments accountable for what they say they’re going to do.”
Besides getting some of those Caltrans projects pulled back, Price has managed to make other inroads during his time in elected office. Not only is he recognized as one of California’s most influential voices in advocating for creating small business enterprises, but, believing in policies that spark economic growth, encourage innovation, open doors for everyone, create jobs and stimulate the state economy, he has authored legislation that would increase opportunities for small businesses to compete for those state contracts while offering incentives for creating new jobs.
One such measure, AB 31, which was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, increased the small business contracting thresholds from $100,000 to $250,000. And SB 66 recently restored $8.3 million in loan guarantees available to small business owners seeking loans through the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program. These funds are to be used for expanding operations and hiring new employees in order to boost local economies statewide.
“These were certainly collaborative efforts. I’ve worked closely with the minority contracting community. In order to better understand the issues and concerns, we had a series of meetings where we heard their frustrations in dealings with Caltrans,” he said modestly, adding that he and some of his colleagues will meet on a regular and frequent basis with Caltrans. “We’ll want to discuss, among other things, how federal stimulus dollars are going to be used and what mechanisms are going to be in place to inform the DBE community about these opportunities. We’ve even had some discussions with Laura Chick (controller for the City of Los Angeles) about her investigation of how stimulus monies are being spent and applied and how we sort of determine whether or not contracting opportunities are being provided to a cross-section of businesses to help this economy going again.”
He’s also helped draft a letter that went out to both state and federal agencies outlining the importance of and need to implement a strong DBE program through Caltrans and other agencies.
“We think they’re listening to us, but there’s still just a lot of work that needs to be done. (Toward that end) we’ve introduced SB 1108 which calls for 25 percent of small business participation on all contracting activities. This really attempts to codify the governor’s executive order SO 206, which called for a 25 percent goal for small businesses in overall contracting,” Price said. “We’ve got another bill, SB 1215, which establishes an architect and engineering pre-qualification list for state-funded contracting. We think this will be another vehicle to increase small business participation on those contracts. Caltrans has been exploring ways to use this model to increase the DBE participation in architectural and engineering federally-funded contracts. So we think that can also be a very positive step forward.”
Price also believes that ongoing meetings, awareness and holding agencies and departments accountable while making them accessible are key to moving forward. He has a message for small, minority and otherwise disadvantaged business owners.
“As one member of the Senate who’s sensitive and concerned about the issues related to small business participation and minority business participation specifically in state contracting, I think the state has a real role to play in working with businesses of all sizes as we work through this economic recovery,” Price said. “They certainly have an advocate in the Legislature and Senate in making sure that the resources that the state commands are accessible by small businesses and entrepreneurs who have ideas and can provide products and services that the state can benefit from.”
In the meantime, he says government can’t do it all and business owners should take steps to become a certified DBE and they must make their must make their voice heard to those in office who make decisions that affect them as business owners.
“They need to be active in one or more of the several organizations that exist for businesses,” Price said. “And they should certainly be vigilant in the legislative process and become familiar with the issues and then write, call or go see their representatives about bills they support or oppose, or that they are concerned about.”
Bio of Sen. Curren Price
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Senator Price attended Morningside High School in Inglewood and received a scholarship to Stanford University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. He studied law at Santa Clara University and graduated in 1976 with a Juris Doctor degree.
After receiving his degrees Senator Price worked for an export management firm in West Lost Angeles, where he managed a network of sales agents based in the middle and Far East. Senator Price also enjoyed ten years in Washington, D. C. with a satellite engineering firm where he represented the company on international projects, and was a featured speaker at international conferences on entrepreneurial opportunities in telecommunications.
Senator Price returned to California in 1988, serving as a deputy to two members of the Los Angeles City Council. He later served as the Southern California Coordinator for a statewide association that provided training to assist community-based organizations develop commercial real estate projects. Senator Price has life time teaching credentials for Adult Education and the California Community Colleges.
Curren Price was first elected to the California State Assembly in 2006 to represent the 51st District, and was re-elected by an overwhelming margin to a second term in 2008. After serving one full term in the California State Assembly, Mr. Price was elected in May 2009 to represent the 26th District in the State Senate, which includes a portion of Los Angeles, Culver City, Beverlywood, Hollywood, Koreatown, Ladera Heights, Larchmont, Leimert Park, View Park, and Vermont Hills.
Shortly after being sworn in on June 19, 2009, Senator Price was selected by President pro Tempore
Steinberg to Chair the Legislative Joint Committee on the Arts as well as the Senate Select Committee on Procurement. Senator Price was also selected to be a member of the following committees: Appropriations, Banking, Finance and Insurance, Education, Governmental Organization and Local Government. He also serves on the following Select Committees: California’s Horse Racing Industry, California’s Wine Industry, Constitutional Reform, the Census, Improving State Government and Obesity and Diabetes.
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