Brewer asks about certification complexity and state streamlining
Council Member Gale Brewer says she hears the MWBE application is too complicated. SBS's Haris Khan describes required ownership and business documents and says SBS is working with New York State's new streamlined certification portal.
Councilmember Brewer, before I keep going, do you want to jump in?
One question that I hear all the time, and again, this is on the larger scale, is it's too complicated to apply.
Is that not true, to be an MBWB?
I hear that all the time.
Council Member Burr, thank you so much for joining us.
I was next door.
I wasn't far, just so it's clear.
Go ahead.
Oh, yes, I saw it.
So, yes, the application really depends on the business structure and ownership structure, and there is a requirement to produce business origination documents, ownership structure, bank letters, and this is all the required documents that the city
and the state program as well has similar requirements.
What we're really excited about is the state recently announced a streamlined state certification portal, and we're in active conversations with the state to come up with a way that both of these things work seamlessly and makes the process.
process faster for a New York City firm that wants to apply to city and state certification.
Because essentially, if you're interested in city contracting, you probably could also be very interested in state contracting and vice versa.
So they would be the same when you say streamlined?
Not necessarily the same, but we are working very closely with the state portal, and they do have some functionality where an applicant that is applying through the state's portal could select themselves as a person interested in the city portal.
What's the timing on that?
Do you have any sense?
They've just launched the state-facing portion of it, and we're in active conversations.
It's somewhat of a tech project, so it will require deep coordination, but we're really excited on the prospects of that.
And as of right now, separate from that potential even further streamlining effort that we are underway, if
a MWBE firm approaches the city and is a state-certified firm, we're looking at an average of, and we aim to deliver a response to them, a certification decision to them within a month if they have that state certification.
Again, it really depends on ownership structures.
If you tell us you have 15 partners in your business, that will complicate things because now you've got 15 different sets of ownership documents we have to review.