Washington, DC - In deliberations that are attracting national utility industry interest, the Maryland Public Service Commission [PSC] will meet on Tuesday to consider adoption of women and minority business enterprise procurement goals of 25% for regulated utilities.  The State of Maryland’s current procurement goal is 25%. Adoption of the goals would be facilitated through a proposed Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] between the Maryland PSC and the state's regulated utilities.
 
Identifying and doing business with qualified firms at competitive rates has been a central theme to the Commissions deliberations and outreach to date. Reports from other states indicate significant growth for small business contracting has resulted from similar goal setting.

Maryland's proposed, voluntary MOU would standardize reporting; encourage the utilities to contract with women and minority businesses; and encourage existing women and minority businesses already doing business with the utilities to secure third party certification.

Participants in the meetings have noted that some utilities have been skeptical of any benefits from these kinds of firms or the benefits to their rate paying customers. These utilities have called for further study of the notion and the potential results of the disadvantaged business procurement goals.

Service disabled veteran and other advocacy groups have expressed support for an MOU to increase contracting opportunities, but each has a differing goal for their constituent group.

This may be the last opportunity for the utilities to voluntarily standardize and report on women and minority enterprise purchases before the Maryland state legislature takes up consideration of bills to address the issue. The Maryland Public Service Commission will meet on Tuesday, December 2nd at 10am on the 16th floor Hearing Room, William Donald Schaefer Tower, 6 St. Paul St, Baltimore, MD 21202. The proceedings are open to the public.

The proposed MOU can be downloaded from www.psc.state.md.us . Once there, scroll down to the Public Conference link and follow those prompts to PC 16. The comments from both small businesses and advocate organizations as well as the utilities can be found there.