City of Winston-Salem considers provisions of new SBE program

NC News - Published Nov 02, 2026

The City of Winston-Salem suspended its minority-and woman-owned business enterprise (MWBE) program in July of 2026, following the passage of a bill in the North Carolina state legislature which not only suspended the state's historically underutilized business (HUB) program, but banned governments and municipalities within the state from operating their own MWBE programs (other municipalities such as the City of Charlotte also similarly closed their MWBE programs).

The General Government Committee for the City is now considering the functionality and procedures for a new small business enterprise (SBE) program intended to replace its shuttered MWBE program. A recent session of the Committee was dedicated in part to considering the details of the new SBE program, including such measures as transitioning the old Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise Advisory Committee into a new Small Business Enterprise Advisory Committee, adapting the old provisions relating to requirements made of primes to make good-faith efforts to engage MWBEs and replacing references to MWBEs with SBEs, and in other ways adopting the old provisions of the MWBE program but adapted to consider SBEs instead.

Read more about the suspension of the state HUB program earlier this year at https://dbegoodfaith.com/item.php?item_type=news&news_id=2560.

Read about the City of Charlotte enacting a similar measure earlier this year at https://dbegoodfaith.com/item.php?item_type=news&news_id=2567.

Find the relevant meeting of the Committee at https://winston-salem.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=8283197&GUID=5354A832-980D-4CA2-BB6C-64CB4B9F0A52&Options=&Search=.

Find the City's page for the upcoming Small Business Program at https://www.cityofws.org/3709/Small-Business-Enterprise-Program.