News & Updates

Stay informed with the latest developments and important announcements here.

TO: Our Certified Small and DVBE Business Partners
FROM: The Coalition of Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses (CSDVB)
DATE: October 9, 2026

RE: Important Updates for All AND Our Call to Action to Join CSDVB as an Associate Member!

Dear Supporter of Certified Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses:

Thank You for the continued great responses received as of our last Call to Action and Newsletter!
Welcome to the new Members who joined the CSDVB!

For those of you who haven’t joined Coalition of Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses yet, we urge you to do so soon as future Newsletters will be sent to dues-paying members only! Don’t Miss Out on learning about legislation and regulations that could affect your ability to contract with the State of California, in addition to gaining access to contracting opportunities for your business!

More great updates to report!

Coming Soon!

We’re just about ready to go with the launch of CSDVB’s user-friendly database that would enable you to extract the pertinent information from CalEprocure and export it into an easily searchable website that gives a daily output of NEW State bids. This will be available to CSDVB Members only.

As you know, CalEprocure lists new bidding opportunities daily, but unless you are an expert at navigating through the links and downloads, searching through pages and pages of bid opportunities and searching through the links can take hours.

CSDVB has developed a discussion thread that will give you access to the available bidding opportunities, including industry specific bids of interest to you. CSDVB Members will be able to communicate about the bids of interest, gain real-time access to the current bids, and network with small, micro, and DVBE businesses.

Our goal is to provide its members with access to the more than 21,000 Certified Small and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises (SB/DVBE) in our state, including Micro, Women-Owned and Minority Disadvantaged businesses who contract with our state agencies to provide goods, services and IT contract information and access to all of the SB/DVBEs. Our IT experts are developing the link for the exclusive use of our membership. Like our user-friendly database to access current contracting opportunities, the link to the full list of Certified Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses will be ready to go live next month!


Government Regulations & Contracts

The SBA’s proposal to massively increase small business size standards will have an equally massive impact on federal government contracting. As you probably already know, the U.S. Small Business Administration recently proposed an enormous increases to its small business size standards by 1,000%!

The SBA is proposing to increase the size standard under North American Industry Classification System Code (NAICS) 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services) from $34 million to $531 million, a jump of more than 1,400%. The size standard under NAICS Code 541611 (Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services) would be hiked from $24.5 million to $295 million, an increase of over 1,100%. These are some examples of an across-the-board redefinition of what it means to be a “small business.”

CSDVB is actively involved in opposing the SBA’s proposal to increase the size standards for small businesses and we are in a very good position to ensure that the SBA withdraws its proposal. More on the status on this issue in the next newsletter.

Regulatory Front – DGS and CSDVB Activity Report

On September 21st, CSDVB met with DGS’ Deputy Director and brought our Small Business Team comprised of the CA Black, Asian, Hispanic, and the Rainbow Chambers of Commerce, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO-CA), and NFIB to discuss the intel that CSDVB received (from highly credible sources) that the CDCR is planning to contract with Philadelphia-based Aramark for all of its food contracts.

Evidently, this has been a project in the works by CDCR and Aramark for two-years or so.

We informed DGS’ Deputy Director that if CDCR’s and Aramark’s plan moves forward, thousands of small and disabled veteran businesses, and women and minority-owned businesses will be adversely affected in that Aramark not only will supply all food, they will also supply goods (paper goods, etc.).

DGS’ Deputy Director was unaware of CDCR’s and Aramark’s plan and indicated her strong concerns about whether they would be able to bypass the bidding process and that CDCR would not be in compliance with state laws pertaining to contracting with the state and securing approval from DGS for a sole source type of contract.

We also discuss the following facts on CA’s fuel prices that are significantly impacting our state’s small and disabled veteran businesses, Chamber members, women-owned and minority businesses, and all small businesses in our rural areas.

We raised the following issues:

  • California Diesel Fuel Prices Jan. 2026 $4.66/gal. Sept. 2026 $8.04/gal.

  • 73% increase this year to date

  • Nationwide increase is 67%

  • California is $1.75/gal. more expensive than most of US

  • Incoming inventory to supply California institutions impacted with higher freight rates

  • In-State deliveries impacted with fuel surcharges at 70% to 80%

  • Contracts that are 2 years in length bid at low margin have no recourse when there are no mechanisms in place to bear the burden of cost increases out of the vendors control

We are working with DGS’ Deputy Director to research the allowance for fuel price increases that DGS used back in 2000 -2008 that provided small businesses with the opportunity to bid competitively, including allowances for increased fuel prices that are included in the bids.

The next DGS SBAC meeting is scheduled on December 9th (Wed.) from 1-4 p.m. at the Ziggurat Building and these topics will be discussed again, along with new developments on CDCR’s and Aramark’s plan and how DGS will intervene. We are also bringing this issue to the attention of our State’s Labor Agency Secretary who reports directly to the Governor.

On September 30th, the Governor appointed a new Director of DGS upon the resignation of Ana Lasso who has served as DGS’ Director since 2001. Jason Kenny has assumed the role of Director and we are working with his scheduler to meet with him and his Deputy Director in mid-October. We will report on the status of these meetings in next month’s issue.

As reported last month, CSDVB has served since 2009 as a lead member of DGS’ Small Business Advisory Council (SBAC) on behalf of all of the Certified Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses to make sure your concerns are heard and acted upon by DGS’ Director. This includes strengthening the enforcement of rules and regulations to ensure more contracting opportunities go to the Certified Small Businesses. The CSDVB and DGS are working on the projects important to all SB/DVBEs included below.

We work closely with DGS to correct inconsistent contracting practices that result in the loss of contracting opportunities for small businesses throughout our state, including our rural and underserved communities. We continue to work with DGS in advocating for the unbundling of contracts so that more small businesses can participate in the solicitation process thereby creating more jobs.

Our goal is to continue working with DGS and to serve on committees that will consolidate the delegated purchasing authority tiers from four to three tiers, and every department in the first tier receive an increase in their delegated purchasing authority. Purchasing tiers are published on the DGS website. Vendors can check departmental authority for direct procurement. We believe that this will increase competitive procurement opportunities for SB/DVBEs.

We succeeded in increasing the Fair and Reasonable threshold, increasing it from $10,000 to $20,000, to allow state departments to procure without full competition under $20K. This will create more opportunities for SB/DVBE who want to contract with the state.

We continue to support improvements to the E-Marketplace online punch-out catalog for state contracts. Phase one was launched in mid-November with enhanced search functionality. This will enable state departments to search by item code that is in a contract by vendor, location, and to access attachments related to those contracts more efficiently.

Cal eProcure remains active and is working on efficiency Improvements in Bid Documentation. This will likely require policy changes and potential legislative changes. DGS is working on reducing redundant documents in bids with the goal to consolidate or embed required documents into state standard terms and conditions, thereby reducing paperwork during the bid process. The objective is to prevent bid rejections due to missing legally required forms. These changes are part of a broader push for efficiency and simplification, with more updates expected in late 2026.

If you haven’t done so already, please join CSDVB! We can only achieve success in our advocacy efforts in the Legislature and through our partnership with DGS with your help! For $100 per year as an Associate Member, you will receive the CSDVB’s monthly to-the-point briefing and update to keep you informed on key legislation, regulations, and DGS’ activities that will affect your ability to grow and thrive.

Formed in 2009 by a small group of small, microbusinesses and disabled veteran business enterprises, the CSDVB is mission-driven to improve state contracting opportunities for small businesses through our highly effective education and advocacy efforts in working with the state legislature, regulators, agencies, boards and commissions on your behalf. The CSDVB has been responsible for securing over $1 billion dollars of contracts with the state.

Our mission is to ensure that ALL contracts are fairly and equitably awarded to Certified Small Businesses, especially when bidding against the large prime vendors, many of whom are located outside of the state.

Most importantly, as a Member you will have exclusive access to the 21,612 Certified Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses, along with connecting you to programs that our business association partners hold each month. Also, your membership will provide you with the state-of-the-art link to statewide contracts that DGS sends out daily so you will have quick and easy access without having to navigate through DGS’ CalEprocurment system that can take hours to sort and download.

Please join our broad-based Coalition of Certified Small Businesses, Disabled Veteran Businesses, Women-Owned Businesses, and Micro-Businesses today so we can continue our efforts to increase your contracting opportunities with the state while working to make the procurement process more fair, efficient and equitable!



Contact

Coalition of Small &
Disabled Veteran Businesses
P.O. Box 2576
Fresno CA 93745

Email

Phone

info@csdvb.online

(279) 284-4170

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