BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 … · BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013-14 ... Business Conference in the spring. This fall the SBDC ... of Educational

BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN

FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2013-14

SUBMITTED BY:

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY PURCHASING DEPARTMENT ATTN: ANTHONY MONTERO 777 GLADES ROAD ADM 121 BOCA RATON, FL 33431-0991

October 25, 2013

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN

FISCAL YEAR 2013-14

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter of Transmittal

Section 1 Mission, Vision & Diversity Commitment

Section 2 Plan Implementation, Tracking & Responsible Officials

Section 3 Programs & Initiatives

Section 4 Outreach Activities

Section 5 Educational Activities

Section 6 Past Contracting Successes

Section 7 Subcontractor Reporting

Section 8 New Initiatives

Appendix A Department of Management Services – Request for Participation Plan (dtd 9/27/2013)

Appendix B Accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2012-2013

Department of Purchasing

777 Glades Road

Boca Raton, FL 33431

tel: 561.297.3080

fax: 561.297.3084

www.fau.edu

October 25, 2013 Department of Management Services Office of Supplier Diversity (OSD) Attn: Thad Fortune 4050 Esplanade Way Suite 380 Tallahassee, FL 32399-0950 Dear Mr. Fortune, In accordance with DMS’ letter dated September 27

th, 2013, enclosed is Florida Atlantic

University’s annual Business Participation Plan. FAU is proud to support our Florida’s business community and to enhance and encourage the participation of small, minority, woman and veteran owned business enterprises in the University’s purchasing programs. Please contact me at (561)-297-3085 if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely,

Anthony Montero Associate Director 1 Encl FAU Business Participation Plan, FY 2013-14 cc: L. DuKate (President’s Office) D. Russell (Sr. VP, Financial Affairs) E. Schiff (Purchasing)


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SECTION 1 – MISSION, VISION, & DIVERSITY COMMITMENT Florida Atlantic University is committed to providing fair and equal opportunities for all businesses to compete in the procurement process. FAU does not reserve any procurement nor provides price preferences to any vendor on acquisition matters.

Mission: Florida Atlantic University continues its strong commitment to assist and encourage the growth of small and disadvantaged businesses by removing unnecessary burdens in University procurements and promoting an atmosphere conducive to the development of these enterprises towards a beneficial business relationship with the University and other political entities.

Vision: Florida Atlantic University has developed and implemented a Business Participation Plan designed to promote, enhance, and increase the participation of small, minority, woman, and veteran owned business enterprises in the University’s Purchasing Program.

Diversity Commitment: FAU has established, to the maximum extent possible and practical, uniform purchasing procedures for full and open competition regarding the acquisition of commodities, contractual services, and minor construction. The procurement procedures and contracting process for FAU is set forth in the Florida Atlantic University’s Regulation 6.008 – Purchasing and the FAU Purchasing Manual.


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SECTION 2 - PLAN IMPLEMENTAION, TRACKING & RESPONSIBLE OFFICIALS FAU’s Small Business Participation Plan is implemented and administered by the Associate Director of Purchasing, Mr. Anthony Montero, who also serves as the University’s Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator. On a daily basis, the Program Coordinator is responsible for planning and attending all outreach events and activities, counseling vendors, providing purchasing assistance, and reporting activities under the program to the designated officials. The Director of Purchasing, Mr. Ed Schiff, oversees the activities of the Associate Director and provides higher level support/direction to ensure the continued success of the program. Mr. Schiff also administers policies and procedures related to the University’s purchasing program that assist small and disadvantaged businesses in gaining burden free access to FAU’s procurement program. The designated senior official for the Small and Minority Business Program is Ms. Dorothy Russell, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration. Program activities and accomplishments are exchanged with FAU’s President, Vice Presidents, and senior management staff through the Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration as necessary.

The Business Participation Plan and all quarterly/annual reports are submitted to the President of Florida Atlantic University, or his designated representative for review and approval. The data used in tracking progress on FAU’s Business Participation Plan is compiled daily as part of the Purchasing’s Department Private-Eye System; a “green” utility for reporting, records archiving and for the electronic dissemination of purchase orders to customers and vendors. This database is filtered quarterly using dBase and associated programs where it is sorted into the four basic commodity groups based on account codes. The resulting data is then sorted again against another database of OSD Certified and Non-Certified Minority Business Enterprise codes to produce the final quarterly report data. Second and third tier spend data, such as construction subcontractor adjustments on major construction, is compiled quarterly from the general contractor pay vouchers and manually tabulated for inclusion into the report.


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SECTION 3 – PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES

Florida Atlantic University maintains vigilance for opportunities to promote and encourage businesses to participate in the University’s procurement program. This is accomplished through the following methods:

Vendor Tradeshows and Conferences – FAU continues its strong support and participation in vendor outreach conferences and tradeshows.

Local Community Outreach – FAU regularly participates in events aimed at educating and promoting local small, minority, woman and veteran owned business on procurement opportunities with public entities. FAU’s Small and Minority Business Coordinator is a regular guest lecturer and community presenter at the Turner School of Construction Management program for the past six years. These procurement classes are sponsored by Turner Construction Inc, an FAU General Contractor and Construction Manager. The course is for the benefit of small and emerging minority, woman-owned, and veteran–owned businesses to develop the skills needed to manage their companies and compete for construction and other public business opportunities. In addition to the guest lecture series, FAU’s Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator is a regular presenter for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Procurement and Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) at Palm Beach State College. During these classes FAU’s Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator provides guidance and information on how to become part of FAU’s and the State’s public acquisition process, how to locate procurement opportunities, and important information on doing business with public entities. The response from the attendees on FAU’s presentation continues to be overwhelmingly favorable.

Bid Advertisements – The Purchasing Department strives to obtain maximum exposure on all procurement opportunities. The department continues to post solicitations for bids on the University’s website as well as on the State of Florida’s (MyFlorida.com) Marketplace, Vendor Bid System. These methods allow for the greatest electronic exposure of available bid opportunities to the vendor community. Additionally, all solicitations are reviewed by the Small and Minority Business Coordinator prior to the initial public distribution of bid documents. As a result, hundreds of additional unsolicited bid documents are sent out annually to small and disadvantaged businesses as an invitation to seek opportunities with the University.


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As an additional effort to reach out to emerging businesses, all bids are sent to nine local, state, and private small, disadvantaged and minority business organizations for distribution to their members.

One-On-One Counseling – The Small and Minority Business Coordinator provides individual outreach to vendors needing personalized assistance in understanding and participating in the public procurement process. These counseling sessions provide the vendor with the names of specific departments and individuals most likely to utilize the vendor’s goods and services so that their marketing efforts maybe more directly applied to the end customer and decision makers. The vendor is also educated on the University’s purchasing program, available electronic resources including the State’s business websites and other sources for public procurement opportunities.

Certification - FAU’s Small and Minority Business Coordinator counsels and encourages Vendors to register with the State of Florida and to obtain their minority certification from the Office of Supplier Diversity. Over six years ago FAU also participated in the successful creation of a program with local public entities to develop acceptable reciprocal certifications. As a result of the One Stop Shop certification program, FAU shares the small, woman and veteran certifications issued by Palm Beach County, the City of West Palm Beach, and the Palm Beach County School Board.


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SECTION 4 – OUTREACH ACTIVITIES As previously mentioned FAU routinely participates in a number of outreach activities throughout the year providing counseling sessions to prospective vendors as well as seeking out vendors to participate in FAU purchasing opportunities. Since the annual Office of Supplier Diversity’s MatchMaker Conference and Tradeshow has not been held for the past two years, the primary outreach event has been the Small Business Development Center’s spring and fall Business Tradeshows conducted at Palm Beach State College. Last year the fall event was a Battlefield to Business Veteran show, followed by a Federal/State Government Business Conference in the spring. This fall the SBDC has scheduled FAU to present at their November event, Boost Your Small & Veteran Owned Business. FAU’s Small and Minority Business Coordinator also attends local outreach opportunities including events with the Palm Beach State College’s Procurement Technical Assistance Center, School Board of Palm Beach County, and Palm Beach County government workshops, as well as professional tradeshows such as the NAEP (National Association of Educational Procurement) Regional Conference whenever possible. So far this year FAU’s Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator has already conducted two stand-alone training classes for vendors for the Turner Construction Management Institute and the Small Business Development Center. The turnout for these classes was over 50 vendors each. The Small and Minority Business coordinator routinely provides one-on-one vendor counseling on a daily basis for businesses seeking opportunities with FAU and the State.


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SECTION 5 – EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS The primary outreach events for FAU have been accomplished by working closely with the Small Business Development Center at Palm Beach State College. The SBDC conducts two large vendor outreach events annually. Last year the fall event was a Veteran Owned Business tradeshow, followed by a Government Business Conference in the spring that focused on federal and state opportunities. FAU is scheduled to present at their next annual event in November, Boost Your Small & Veteran Owned Business. The University’s Small and Minority Business Coordinator is also a guest lecturer for the Turner Construction School of Construction Management and a counselor for the local SBDC’s - Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC). This year FAU has taught two stand-alone procurement classes for Turner and PTAC at events that were widely attended by vendors. With so much personal exposure coupled with our bid advertisement methods, vendors routinely seek out FAU’s Small and Minority Business Coordinator for counseling and information. At least daily the Small and Minority Business Coordinator counsels vendors on the public procurement process and FAU’s purchasing program. In these sessions the vendors’ are provided in depth instruction on conducting business with FAU and the state on a one-on-one basis; this allows the vendor the opportunity to have their specific questions addressed and to locate their target decision makers to market their commodities and services.


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SECTION 6 – PAST CONTRACTING SUCCESSES In FY 2012-13, FAU spent $11.7M with MBE’s which was up $305,258 (3%) from the previous fiscal year’s achievement! The spending with State Certified MBE’s also grew in FY 2012-13 by 9% over the previous fiscal year to $8,541,417. Despite two year consecutive fiscal years without construction and A&E funding for major projects, the University’s Small and Minority Business Program still grew in the Services and Commodity groups compared to FY 2011-12, which overall yielded positive growth for the program.


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During FY 2012-13 FAU spent $8.5M with DMS certified minority business enterprises (CMBE’s); a 9% increase over FY 2011-12:


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And an additional $3.2M in FY 2012-13 with non-certified minority business enterprises:


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Other significant accomplishments this year continue to be the expansion of contracts with FAU’s small and minority custodial services contractor, Dirt Pros to include other areas of campus and the stadium. FAU also continues to increase the utilizations of a local veteran-owned business, Corporate Interiors. Finally, FAU bid and awarded a custodial services contract for the Harbor Branch Campus to a local small business franchise of Coverall. The most significant contribution of our Purchasing program to business communities continues to be the utilization of Florida based vendors. In FY 2012-13 FAU spent over 60% of the total purchasing transactions within the state, nearly $73.2M!


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SECTION 7 – SUBCONTRACTOR REPORTING FAU has a time tested method for properly obtaining and verifying subcontractor payment information on construction projects. As part of the required submittals with all major Construction/A&E Payment Requests, the vendor is required to submit an FAU Form detailing all payments made to minority, woman and veteran-owned business. The form tracks the total amount of the subcontract, payments previously made, and payments included in the instant pay request voucher. Any payments being requested for a subcontractor must be accompanied by the paid invoice as back up documentation in the prime contractor’s pay request. Once the pay request has been reviewed and approved by Facilities Planning and sent to the Controller’s Office for payment, a copy of the pay voucher is sent to the Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator. The minority subcontractor payment report is reviewed, the vendor’s minority status verified, and back up documentation verified. The Small and Minority Business Program Coordinator collects the appropriate subcontractor information by project number and reports these expenditures quarterly. Other second and third tier subcontractor reporting data is obtained annually directly from contract vendors in report format such as Office Depot and Fisher, and other major campus operations such as food services, construction managers, and vending.


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SECTION 8 - NEW INITIATIVES

FAU’s Purchasing Department reorganization of personnel and re-flowed business processes has streamlined the organization to achieve record processing lead times with increasingly higher and more demanding volumes. In addition to the electronic green savings increased customer support, our vendors are also capitalizing from the program through a reduction in their lead times and paperless purchasing. The increase in electronic access is making it easier for small and minority vendors to participate in real time acquisition decisions. FAU continues to building on the success of previous years implementing processes to capitalize on vendor offerings of prompt payment discounts with electronic invoicing and electronic invoice payments (ACH – Automated Clearing House). In regards to ACH, FAU has achieved a remarkable 97% participation rate amongst vendors for electronic payments. For the small business community and labor intensive vendors like custodial services, the ability to maintain cash flow without seeking a credit float is a major cost reduction for their operations. The Purchasing Department is currently examining new procedures for electronic issuance and submission of bids. FAU, in coordination with the Board of Governors (BOG) and the Inter-Institutional Committee On Purchasing (ICOP) is also researching alternatives to the current ERP system (Banner) with the goal of increasing electronic commerce capabilities.

APPENDIX A -

Department of Management Services Request for Participation Plan

September 27, 2013

APPENDIX B -

Accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2012-2013

(7/1/2012-6/30/2013)

Documents

BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 … · BUSINESS PARTICIPATION PLAN FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013-14 ... Business Conference in the spring. This fall the SBDC ... of Educational