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Between the
U. S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
and the
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
I. Introduction
This document formalizes an agreement between the Small Business
Administration (SBA) and the Department of Labor (DOL) (the Parties) to
implement a coordinated, interagency initiative to improve opportunities for
people with disabilities to be employed by small businesses or to become small
business owners. The initiative begins a cooperative and coordinated five-part
Federal effort to inform small business owners about the value of, and
incentives for, hiring qualified job applicants who have disabilities, and to
support individuals with disabilities in acquiring the essential basic skills
and resources needed for starting or growing a small business.
Accordingly, this Strategic Alliance Memorandum (SAM) sets forth
the agreed-upon terms on the content and method for the administration of the
initiative.
II. Background
The DOL and the SBA share interests in increasing employment
opportunities in small businesses for people with disabilities and in assisting
people with disabilities who want to become entrepreneurs to acquire the skills
and resources necessary for starting a business. To accomplish these goals,
employers need to understand how to recruit, hire and manage employees with
disabilities, as well as be aware of the incentives for hiring people with
disabilities. Potential entrepreneurs with disabilities need training on how to
operate a small business, access financial resources and find information on
issues unique to people with disabilities.
Small businesses constitute an important and often overlooked
resource for increasing the employment rate for people with disabilities. Small
businesses account for 99.7 percent of all employers and employ more than half
of all private sector employees. Small businesses have historically generated
60 to 80 percent of new jobs annually.
The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is unacceptably
high (approximately 43 percent for all people with disabilities; about 70
percent for individuals with significant disabilities). This high unemployment
rate impacts not only the lives of people with disabilities, but also the
Nation’s economy. Most unemployed people with disabilities receive cash
and other benefits from government-funded income support and health care
programs, but most would rather be working. This group of more than nine
million individuals makes up a valuable but untapped pool of talent for
America’s small employers.
At the same time, more people with disabilities are turning to
entrepreneurship as a career choice. Information from the 1990 national census,
the latest available, shows that people with disabilities have a higher rate of
self?employment and small business ownership than people without disabilities
(12 percent of people with disabilities versus 8 percent of people without
disabilities). The most significant obstacle faced by entrepreneurs with
disabilities is the attitude that individuals with disabilities are incapable
of operating a business. This attitude is often prevalent among the resource
providers they need most, such as job training and placement agencies, the
finance community, and agencies that support small business development. This
attitude sometimes prevails despite substantial evidence that people with
disabilities are successfully operating a wide range of businesses on a daily
basis.
SBA and its funded resource partners (for example, Service Corps
of Retired Executives (SCORE), Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs),
Women’s Business Centers and Veteran’s Business Development Centers)
provide cutting edge management and technical assistance to individuals who
wish to begin or grow a business, including disabled veterans. These resources
enable small business owners to operate their businesses more effectively and
efficiently.
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) created a national
workforce investment system consisting of One-Stop Career Centers and their
partner programs, including those required by the Act and others identified by
One-Stop Career Centers as useful for accomplishing their mission. The system
promises to expand the array of coordinated and customized services that can be
provided to individuals, including those with disabilities, who need assistance
to achieve their goals for economic self-sufficiency through employment or
self-employment. This initiative will enable SBA and DOL to improve their
respective capacities to serve the needs of people with disabilities.
III. The Federal Participating Agencies
A. The Department of Labor (DOL): DOL will
provide support for the initiative through the Office of Disability Employment
Policy (ODEP), the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), the Office of
Small Business Programs (OSBP), and the Veterans’ Employment and Training
Service (VETS).
B. The Small Business Administration (SBA): SBA
will provide support for the initiative through the Office of the
Administrator.
IV. The Initiative
On February 1, 2001, President George Bush announced his New
Freedom Initiative for people with disabilities. The New Freedom Initiative
will help Americans with disabilities by increasing access to assistive
technologies, expanding educational opportunities, increasing the ability of
Americans with disabilities to do productive work, and promoting increased
access into daily community life. In furtherance of President Bush’s New
Freedom Initiative, the SBA and the DOL agree to jointly develop “The New
Freedom Small Business Initiative” to accomplish the following goals:
- Assist adult workers with disabilities in acquiring the skills
and resources necessary to successfully begin and operate a small business;
and
- Educate small business owners about the benefits of hiring
people with disabilities.
This Initiative will consist of five components:
A. Encouraging small businesses to hire people with
disabilities. Activities under this initiative will focus on
encouraging and enhancing employment opportunities in small businesses for
people with disabilities. Examples include making information available to
small business owners regarding the following:
- Tax and other incentives available when hiring people with
disabilities.
- Sources of qualified job applicants with disabilities.
- Resources for reasonable accommodation and assistive
technologies.\
- Other technical assistance and training resources on the
employment of individuals with disabilities.
B. Building capacity of the workforce investment system
and the SBA to increase small business opportunities for people with
disabilities. Activities under the initiative will encourage and
facilitate the following:
- Collaborative approaches for providing information, training
and resources to staff at SBA, SBDCs, SCORE, Veteran Business Outreach Programs
and other programs to increase their capacity to serve people with
disabilities.
- Making small business information and training available to
people with disabilities at One-Stop Career Centers established under the
Workforce Investment Act of 1998, VETS field staff, and at Transition
Assistance Program (TAP) Workshops.
- Partnerships by state and local agencies and organizations,
including State and local Workforce Investment Boards, to coordinate delivery
of small business training and services to people with disabilities.
C. Leveraging of other federal, state and private programs
for support of entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.
Activities under the initiative will focus on the following:
- Establishing an interagency working group, jointly chaired by
the SBA and the DOL, which will develop and implement a coordinated plan for
implementing the New Freedom Small Business Initiative. The chairs shall invite
other Federal departments and agencies to join the working group as
appropriate.
- Encouraging entrepreneurship for people with disabilities by
promoting the use of existing economic development, microenterprise and other
Federal programs, such as Project GATE, through collaboration with other
Federal departments and agencies.
D. Encouraging people with disabilities to pursue small
business ownership as a career choice. Activities under the initiative
will be focused on making information available to people with disabilities
about small business ownership as a career choice, including information on
local programs providing training and support about procedures and resources
available for starting and building a small business.
E. Establishing a coordinated effort to document and
disseminate best practices to potential employers of persons with disabilities,
potential employees, and entrepreneurs with disabilities.
V. Resources
This agreement does not itself authorize the expenditure or
reimbursement of any funds. Nothing in this agreement obligates the SBA or the
DOL to expend appropriations or enter into any contract or other obligations.
The New Freedom Small Business Coordinating Committee (see
VII.A.) may make recommendations to the Parties on the resources needed for
this initiative but may not obligate either Party to spend appropriated funds.
Should funds be committed by the Parties in the future, it will be recorded
through other documents as appropriate and as required by law.
VI. Responsibilities of the Parties
A. General Responsibilities. Responsibilities,
both shared and individual, of the Agencies participating in the New
Freedom Small Business Initiative include the following:
- All issuances, guidance, press releases, presentations, etc.,
related to this initiative will:
- Acknowledge all Parties;
- Be subject to the clearance procedures of all Parties and
the Administration, as appropriate;
- Be disseminated on one or both agencies’ websites and
by other means, as appropriate, following Agency web policies.
- The Parties may collaborate to establish relationships with
outside parties to support the New Freedom Small Business Initiative, as
appropriate, per SBA and DOL policy.
B. Specific Responsibilities
- DOL/ODEP will take responsibility for providing expert advice
on the employment of people with disabilities by small businesses and issues
for people with disabilities who want to become self-employed or start a
business.
- SBA will take primary responsibility for compiling information
available from Federal, State and local economic development programs
associated with small business opportunities for people with disabilities. SBA
will also work with DOL to disseminate this information to new and existing
small business owners as appropriate.
- DOL/ETA will take primary responsibility for providing guidance
to the One-Stop Career Center system to accomplish the following:
- Promote collaboration between the One-Stop Career Center
system and the SBA and its resource partners on small business activities for
people with disabilities; and
- Identify local small business models of cooperation among
WIA entities, small business service providers, and disability agencies and
organizations.
- DOL/VETS will work through its network of Disabled Veteran
Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists in the states to coordinate efforts for
disabled veterans who are seeking employment and/or have an interest in
starting their own business. VETS will also work with its partner at the
Department of Veterans Affairs’ Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment
(VR&E) Service to assure VR&E’s client group is aware of this
effort.
- DOL/OSBP will make available information on procurement
opportunities within the Department of Labor and will lend support and
expertise to this undertaking, in any area related to its jurisdiction, to
promote success of the initiative.
VII. Initiative Governance Responsibilities
A. Project Management. The signing of this
agreement will establish a New Freedom Small Business Coordinating
Committee that will serve as the overall project management body. Both
Parties will appoint one or more persons to serve on the committee, including
the designation of one person from the DOL and one person from the SBA to serve
as co-chairs.
B. Operating Procedures. The Parties will
develop, within 30 days of the signing of this agreement, a work plan which
will define the functions of the Committee, establish management procedures for
implementing activities under this initiative, and delineate principles
governing the interaction of the participating agencies. The work plan will be
set and created by mutual agreement of the Parties.
VIII. Resolution of Conflicts
Nothing in this SAM shall take precedence over or diminish the
policies, directives, and procedures of the respective Parties. Conflicts
between the Parties shall be referred to the respective responsible point of
contact (see Section XIII) for resolution. If a satisfactory resolution cannot
be achieved at this level, the responsible points of contact shall refer the
matter to the signatories of this SAM through their respective channels.
IX. Authority
This SAM is authorized by Division G, Title I of the Consolidated
Appropriations Resolution, 2003 (Pub L. 108-7) (see “Office of Disability
Employment Policy”); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001, Pub. L.
106-554, 29 U.S.C. 557b; Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Small Business Act; Sections
167 (d) and 171 of the Workforce Investment Act; and Title 38, USC, chapter
41.
No Agency is limiting its right to act in a manner it deems
advisable to carry out its programs. This agreement is an internal Government
agreement and is not intended to confer any right upon any private person.
The parties acknowledge that specific joint training events,
seminars, forums, or initiatives contemplated by this SAM require further
specific negotiations and must be conducted under the SBA’s co-sponsorship
authority (Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Small Business Act). As appropriate, the
SBA will invite its participating lenders and resource partners, including
SCORE, local SBDCs, WBCs and VBOCs to participate in specific training events,
seminars, forums or initiatives as attendees, presenters, or cosponsors.
X. Period of Performance
This SAM will take effect at the time of execution and remain in
effect for two (2) years thereafter, unless terminated by either of the
Parties.
XI. Right to Terminate
Either of the Parties may terminate this SAM, in whole or in part,
by written notice. The Party requesting the termination must provide to the
other Party at least 60 calendar days notice.
XII. Public Information Coordination
Public disclosure of information regarding activities conducted
under this SAM will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C.
§ 552) as well as the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a, as
amended).
XIII. Points of Contact
Formal Points of Contact will be the SBA’s Authorizing
Official and the DOL’s Coordinating Official. For this SAM, SBA’s
Authorizing Official will be SBA’s Associate Administrator for the Office
of Strategic Alliances, Adela M. Soriano; DOL’s Coordinator will be W. Roy
Grizzard, Assistant Secretary, Office of Disability Employment Policy. Informal
points of contact for each Agency will be identified by the SBA Authorizing
Official and the DOL Coordinator within 30 calendar days of the execution of
this Agreement.
XIV. Modification of the SAM
The Parties agree to consult each other on any amendments or
issues to be addressed. The Parties may modify the SAM by written mutual
consent.
XV. Executed By:
Elaine L. Chao
Secretary Date
U.S. Department of
Labor
Hector V. Barreto
Administrator Date
U.S. Small Business
Administration
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