Carozza pushing for more veteran-owned businesses

Delegate Mary Beth Carozza will be the first to say changing what she calls the state’s “stringent” procurement laws isn’t easy, but she’s willing to try in order to foster more veteran-owned businesses into the state’s bidding process.

She has sponsored a bill, HB243, that seeks to increase the total dollar value of the state’s procurement going directly or indirectly to veteran-owned businesses by a factor of 10. The state’s existing goal is one half of one percent, and Carozza is trying to push it to five.

“Fiscal 2013 is the first year we have numbers for this, and it’s pretty low at only two-tenths of one percent,” she said this week.

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