EDITORIAL FEATURE
Hire Houston First Is Keeping City Business Local By Mayor Annise Parker
I
’m delighted to focus my first column in Small Business Today Magazine on a promise I made when I first ran for mayor in 2009 – to create a program to allow the city to implement a local preference in the competition for city contracts. It took some creativity at City Hall and a change in state legislation to fulfill that promise, but today our Hire Houston First initiative is a big success. In the program’s first year, more than $139 million of city business was awarded to designated Hire Houston First firms, sustaining more than 6,000 jobs. 81 percent of the time, HHF companies won the formal bid contracts because they submitted the lowest bids. The other 19 percent of the time the city utilized the local preference component of HHF to award the work to the local firm. I started Hire Houston First as a response to Houston’s tough economic times, as part of my efforts to create new jobs and keep Houstonians working. Now, as our economy is growing again, I want to make sure this growth benefits our local businesses and workers.
benefits. Houstonians employed by these projects, and the Houston companies that profit from them, will use much of the money they earn to purchase goods and services from other local businesses – that in turn will use their earnings to support even more local businesses. I knew our local firms would be competitive. Now we have the numbers to prove it. As the program moves forward, I want to see more Houston-area companies designated to benefit from the local preference when the bid competition warrants. Our tax dollars need to stay here where they are supporting local businesses and the jobs they provide. HHF allows the city to consider a vendor’s principle place of business and to grant preference to local businesses in awarding certain city contracts. For contracts under $100,000, the city may select the local firm’s price if it is within five percent of the lowest bid from an out-of-town company. For contracts exceeding $100,000, there can be no more than
a three percent difference between the out-of-town low bid and the next highest offer from a local vendor. The total number of HHF designated firms now tops 800. Many of these companies have never attempted to compete for city work. The numbers continue to grow as the city’s Office of Business Opportunity steps up outreach to get more companies designated. Hire Houston First is administered by the Mayor's Office of Business Opportunity, which also certifies Small, Minority, Women, Persons with Disabilities, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. The ordinance adds more value to certified businesses because most of them already have a local presence. Becoming an HHF business is another measure to level the playing field and increase the opportunity for local firms to become prime contractors. To qualify for designation, businesses must meet at least one of two requirements: Continued on page 13
I believe growth begins at home – and one of the most basic and powerful steps we can take to encourage growth is to keep our local tax dollars working to keep Houston’s economy strong. By encouraging the use of local companies and workers on taxpayer-funded projects, we are able to maximize the economic impact of our governmental spending. Houston spends billions of dollars providing essential services and building and maintaining everything from streets and bridges to water lines and sidewalks. When these services are provided by local businesses that hire local residents, our economy www.SBTMagazine.net
Mayor Annise Parker announces the formation of the historic Hire Houston First initiative at a press conference in 2011. In its first year of operation, Hire Houston First firms supported 6,000 jobs SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE JUNE 2013 | PG 11