SOMA Cultural Anchor Fund
Procurement Guidelines
Supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
Step One
Read the Bidding Best Practices one-pager.
Step Two
Read the Contracting Best Practices one-pager.
Step Three
Visit the City’s LBE database to search for certified woman-owned local business enterprises (WBEs) and minority-owned local business enterprises (MBE) .
Step Four
Submit this form to Community Vision once your contract has been signed. Based on your form submission, Community Vision will assist your contractor directly with prevailing wage compliance and email you if any compliance issues arise. If you don’t hear from us, your contractor is compliant.
PROCUREMENT PROCESS
During the procurement process, all grantees must:
- Read our Bidding Best Practices one-pager.
- Read our Contracting Best Practices one-pager.
- Source service providers from San Francisco’s Local Business Enterprise (LBE) database, maintained and made public by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
- Select a woman-owned local business enterprise (WBE) or a minority-owned local business enterprise (MBE) from the LBE database unless none are available, in which case a waiver can be requested by emailing grantmaking@communityvisionca.org.
Know a contractor or subcontractor interested in being listed on the LBE database? Encourage them to apply! It’s free and the City’s Contract Monitoring Division provides free technical assistance to apply.
All selected contractors must:
- Comply with prevailing wage requirements. See below for more information.
- Source subcontractors from the LBE database, and all subcontractors must be woman- or minority-owned businesses, unless a waiver is requested and approved.
WHAT IS PROCUREMENT?
Procurement refers to the act of buying a product or service from a vendor. The procurement process involves determining what products or services will be needed, identifying the vendor you would like to work with, and entering into an agreement with that vendor to pay for and receive the goods or services.
When funds from the City and County of San Francisco are used to procure something, there are legal and ethical requirements in place to protect both the buyer and vendors who have faced multi-generational disinvestment and exclusion based on race, gender, economic status, and other factors.
Abiding by these procurement guidelines is one of the many ways we can collectively invest in wealth-building, power-building and systemic change for communities who have been pushed to the margins of opportunities. This document applies to you if you are a SOMA Cultural Anchor Fund grantee requesting grant funds to pay for professional services or construction contracts related to your project. Examples of service professionals are movers, graphic designers, architects, engineers, cost estimators, and project managers.
WHAT IS PREVAILING WAGE?
The City of San Francisco and the State of California have labor protections in place to ensure service-providers receive fair pay. This is called prevailing wage because they are paid the average wage for similar work that prevails in the intended geographic area, which also always meets local minimum wage requirements.
To be prevailing-wage-compliant, all service-providers in industries that are subject to prevailing wage requirements AND have publicly-funded contracts over $1,000 must pay prevailing wage and keep payroll records on-hand as backup documentation. Most service-providers subject to prevailing wage are in the construction industry, however some non-construction service-providers are also subject to prevailing wage.
For construction-related services, if the contract is for general maintenance and valued over $15,000, the contractor must submit payroll records to the City’s online prevailing wage system, LCPTracker. If the contract is for new construction or rehabilitation and valued over $25,000, the contractor must submit payroll records to LCPTracker.
Complying with prevailing wage is the responsibility of the contractor, not the grantee. Community Vision will work directly with the contractor to determine whether they are subject to prevailing wage compliance, and if so, what level of compliance is required.