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  1. Economic Development
  2. Small Business Enterprise Program

Small Business Enterprise Program

Application | Program | Certified SBE Member List - October 14, 2020

Small businesses: Want to work with the City?
The City of Tulsa awards project bids to companies of all sizes. To help support small businesses, the City has established the Small Business Enterprise (SBE) program, giving small businesses a chance to become subcontractors on specified City projects. Through this program, it is the City’s goal for at least 10 percent of the spending on City engineering services and streets and stormwater projects to go to small businesses.

Why become a Certified SBE?
Many City projects up for bid have a 10 percent SBE utilization goal. This means that prime contractors must identify, as a part of their bidding process, 10 percent of the total dollar amount of the bid to be subtracted out to Certified SBEs, and which specific Certified SBEs they will be contracting with. Bids that do not meet this threshold can be rejected, even if they are the lowest bidder. For this reason, prime contractors bidding on certain City projects are incentivized to subcontract out to Certified SBEs.

You can review open bids, and see which projects have a SBE Utilization Goal, on the City of Tulsa Engineering Services Construction Bids online. Note that not all projects listed have SBE goals. This doesn’t mean Certified SBEs aren’t eligible to subcontract on those projects, just that prime contractors don’t have to meet the utilization goal for those specific bids.

Once your business becomes a Certified SBE, you will be added to the City’s public list of Certified SBEs, and prime contractors will be able to contract with you to help them meet their 10 percent SBE Utilization goal.

The most recent SBE list can be found in the links at the top of the page.

Additional benefits to becoming a Certified SBE include educational, partnering and networking opportunities to develop managerial and communications skills that may help you grow your business.

SBE Utilization Historical Data
To help track the performance of the SBE Program, and to help small businesses better understand the opportunity that the program offers them, the City regularly publishes a report showing historical SBE utilization on project contracts. If the project is complete when the report is published, the final SBE utilization amounts are also shown. These reports are a great way of understanding what kind of work is being subcontracted and what opportunities might exist for your business.


Is this information valuable to you and your business?
Please let us know by taking this SBE Data Usefulness Survey

Are you eligible?
To be considered for SBE Certification, your small business must:

  • Have been operational for at least one year prior to application
  • Have annual sales volume (averaged over the previous three years) of less than $3 million or construction income of less than $5 million
  • Be a for-profit business, independently owned with a physical address in one of the following counties: Tulsa, Osage, Rogers, Pawnee, Wagoner, Creek or Okmulgee
  • Have capacity to perform work independently or as a subcontractor relative to its field of operation, and where required, has a license or certificate issued in his or her name
  • Be owned by a person able to work in the U.S. legally

How to become a Certified SBE
Please download and complete the following application for SBE Certification:

Completed applications may be emailed or printed out and mailed to the City.

If emailing, please send the completed application and required documents to SBE@cityoftulsa.org, and include “SBE Application” in the subject line.

If mailing, send your completed application and required documents to:

Rachel Strassberger
175 E 2nd St
Suite 15
Tulsa, OK 74103

You are also welcome to deliver them to the City Clerk’s office on the 2nd floor of City Hall, 175 E. 2nd St., Tulsa, OK 74103.

Additional resources
The members of the SBE Oversight Committee meet regularly to report, consider, discuss, and potentially recommend actions to the Mayor as they relate to the SBE program. Minutes from those meetings are published here:

SBE Oversight Committee Meeting Minutes

More detailed information about the construction projects bidding process can be found at the City of Tulsa Engineering Services online.

All non-construction bidding opportunities are available Purchasing Bid Opportunities & Results online.

Small Business Enterprise Program