About Certified Business Enterprise (CBE) program reforms

The CBE Program is one of the most ambitious local business inclusion programs in the country, but its resources and structure have not aligned with its ambitious goals. The CBE program reforms are necessary to allow the program to have its intended ambitious positive impact on the maximum number of legitimate District-based businesses.

Actions taken to reform the CBE program

The program reforms include specific actions in three areas:

• Business certification
• Compliance and enforcement
• Government-wide initiatives

The reforms include additional resources as well as legal and regulatory changes. Specific examples of action being taken include:

• Adding ten full time employees (FTEs) to DSLBD's compliance and enforcement team.
• Restoring a team that the Council removed from DSLBD in 2010.
• Amending the joint venture application process by confining bonding capacity to the CBE partner's share of equity in a project.
• Ensuring that DSLBD-certified Joint Ventures (JVs) benefit both JV parties as intended by law.
• Making Certified Small Business Enterprise (CSBE—a CBE subset) expenditure a formal performance indicator for District Government agencies.

Learn more about CBE program reform

An abridged version of the Department's CBE program review is available under related documents. Please email specific questions to [email protected].