Bill calls for giving bidding preference to all veteran-owned contractors

A bill in the Legislature would extend a policy meant to give a bidding advantage to construction firms owned by disabled veterans by including any business owned by veterans, not just those with disabilities.

The proposal, Senate Bill 1026, would eliminate any reference to “disabled” in a provision of state law used to benefit veteran-owned companies. The change would effectively give any veteran-owned contractor a bidding preference, regardless of the disability status of the owner

Jason Johns, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce, said the bill is the first step in an effort to change the state’s bidding-preference system, which he said is now failing to connect disabled veteran-owned companies with work on public projects.

“The program has not been successful at all in getting veteran-owned businesses work on state contracts,” Johns said.

Wisconsin’s Supplier Diversity Program, started in 1983, initially gave companies owned by minorities, women and disabled veterans a 5% bid preference on state contracts. The Legislature extended similar preferences to disabled veterans in 2014, setting a goal of having 1% of all state contracts awarded to such companies.

But Scott Flaugher, owner of Colgate-based Veterans Electric, a disabled-veteran-owned contractor, said the state’s policy has proved largely useless to contractors since it was introduced in 2014. He said the state has mostly measured its success by taking account of the number of companies that have enrolled in the program rather than the number that have won state work.

“There’s been no political will to make this program work,” Flaugher said.

A report on the policy from the state’s 2020 fiscal year found subcontractors owned by disabled veterans made only $15,000 from state contracts that year. Johns said the report shows the system as written is failing to connect firms with meaningful work.

Beyond extending the policy to include all veteran-owned businesses, the bill would change language in state law to direct the Department of Administration to “exhaust all efforts” to ensure that 1% of its contracts go to such companies. The 1% rule is simply a guideline in state law as written, and the state has never met that goal since the program was started.

The bill, introduced Wednesday, is sponsored by Sen. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield. Kooyenga, who also serves as a Major in the U.S. Army Reserves. Kooyenga could not comment on the bill on Friday because of his Army commitments, according to a staff employee. No other lawmaker has signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill, which has yet to receive a public hearing.

Johns said Kooyenga introduced the bill to start a conversation about improving the state’s contracting-incentive policies. Supporters of the bill don’t expect it to advance in this Legislative session, which is likely to end in the next couple weeks. Introducing the bill could give supporters a framework for discussing possible changes to the contracting policy during budget deliberations next year, he said.

“We want to see the contracting industry and the general contractors to welcome this and encourage this,” Johns said. “We like to think of this as a positive thing for the industry.” Follow @natebeck9