Procurement and Contracting

The HSHA Executive Director will develop, implement and monitor procurement and contracting policies and procedures to:

• Ensure that HSHA contractors and subcontractors to the greatest extent feasible maximize hiring of residents of HSHA communities.
• Facilitate contracting with resident-owned business enterprises, to the greatest extent feasible.

Section 3 Contracting Strategies

To ensure compliance with Section 3, HSHA will employ a series of strategies, which include, but are not limited to, the following:

• HSHA will establish standards for structuring and awarding contracts that provide incentives for full participation in the provisions of Section 3 and for enforcing the Section 3 contract provisions, which may include 15% of points awarded on RFP/RFQ or X factor determination on sealed bids.
• All Section 3 covered contracts will include the "Section 3 clause" as required by 24 CFR 134.38. (For text of the required clause see Appendix A of this document).
• For contracts are less than $100,000 in value and the list of certified resident owned businesses and previous contracting experience indicates that qualified resident owned businesses are available to successfully complete the contract, the contracting officer may limit the invitation for bids to certified, qualified resident owned businesses according to the provisions of 24 CFR Part 963.
• For goods and/or services to be contracted for are less than $100,000 and the contract was procured through solicitation or sealed bids, the contracting officer may award the contract to a responding qualified, certified resident owned business if the quotation from the business under consideration is no more than 10% greater than the lowest responsive offer.

Compliance

The HSHA will monitor contractor compliance over the life of the contract as follows:

1.  Review compliance monthly and cumulatively.

2.  Monitor contractor response to deficiencies in compliance.

The contractor shall provide a status report identifying its progress in meeting the Section 3 goals, as established, on a monthly basis throughout the contract period. The monthly status report shall be submitted no later than 15 days after the end of each calendar month of the contract (e.g. April 15 for March). For any goal not met, the report shall identify any other economic opportunities, which the contractor has provided or intends to provide to HSHA residents. This report will provide the HSHA with all information required to monitor compliance with its Section 3 plan including, but not limited to, new hires, core employees, certified payroll, workforce utilization and other relevant data to be specified.

The contractor and sub-contractors will be required to be in compliance with the Owner's Section 3 Plan throughout the duration of the contract.

Alternative Compliance

Contractors may demonstrate compliance with Section 3 by committing to employ Section 3 residents as 30% of the aggregate number of new hires for the duration of the contract.

Section 3 Requirements for the Competitive Proposal Method of Procurement

For HSHA contracts and subcontracts awarded under the competitive proposal method of procurement, a Request for Proposals (RFP) or a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) shall identify all evaluation factors to be used to rate proposals.

All HSHA RFP/RFQ's shall contain Section 3 evaluation factors. The evaluation factors shall address both the preference for Section 3 business concerns. These factors shall be at least 15 percent of the total number of available points to be set aside for the evaluation.

The evaluation committee shall provide a written summary explaining its scoring rationale for each of the evaluative factors.