Salt Lake County passes SMWBE preference

UT News - Published Aug 16, 2018

The council members for Salt Lake County recently approved, by a vote of 5 to 3, a preference policy for small, minority-, and women-owned businesses (SMWBEs) pursuing public contracts.

The procurement policy has previously made provision for a preference for businesses that hire veterans and provide healthcare, and the new SMWBE preference policy is expected to operate in a similar manner. The SMWBE preference policy, as with the prior policy, provides a bid preference of 4 percent for qualifying businesses in the relevant categories.

The changes to the preference policy come after Salt Lake County's local-owned business preference policy had been eliminated as a result of federal guidance.