The backlog in the MWBE system was unfair, it was unjust, and now it's history. Minority- and women-owned businesses are critical to New York's long-term economic success, and I made it a top priority to finally end the backlog so these entrepreneurs had the tools they need to grow and thrive.
Overview
New York has committed to supporting Minority- and Women-Owned Enterprises (MWBE) to build a more equitable and inclusive business environment. In 2023, nearly $3 billion in State contracts were awarded to MWBE firms. New York State had a utilization rate of 32.3%, the highest in the country for the third year in a row.
Due in part to the overwhelming interest in the program, the State was facing a year-long growing backlog of businesses applying to become certified.
Governor Hochul secured an $11 million investment in the FY 2023 Budget to help Empire State Development’s Division of Minority- and Woman-Owned Business Development address this growing problem.
The Problem
At the beginning of 2023, the State faced a backlog of over 3,700 applications for MWBE certification. The backlog had built up over several years, with nearly 1,300 of those applications waiting for over a year. There were even some applications that had sat as long as 499 days.
The review team didn’t have the right processes, training and tools to manage applications or track the progress of an application.
Exacerbating the problem, the review process for applications was handled in a phased approach, in which reviewers handled just a part of the review process, which meant that every application needed to be touched by multiple employees.
Approach
The Division created a plan of action to address the current backlog in two 90-day sprints.
In sprint one, the team agreed to tackle the 1,850 applications that had been already in progress and were in an active review state. In sprint two, the remaining 1,870 applications from the backlog would be reviewed and completed.
Before the work began, the Division made some fundamental changes on how they reviewed and managed the applications.
- Training: The entire team completed a two-week reinforcement training before the sprints started. As a group, they reviewed applications step by step for two weeks to give time for people to ask questions and understand the complexities.
- Implemented Ownership Initiative: To optimize resources, they eliminated the phased review approach and instead assigned each member of the team a group of applications to complete.
- Accountability: The Division ran daily reports to track progress and identify any issues quickly. Any potential issues and bottlenecks were addressed swiftly.
- Technology: The team reduced the number of systems the reviewer used to manage the incoming applications and track the status. This allowed the reviewer to save time and streamline the review, as well as better track the status of an application. This also enabled the management to keep track of diagnostic data and have a birds-eye view of the entire project.
- Quality Assurance: A quality assurance review was added to the process to ensure determinations were consistent with laws and regulations.
- Efficient Use of Partnerships: ESD received additional staffing support from the Department of Labor in reviewing newly received applications, helping ESD stay current while it focused on eliminating the backlog, as well as the support of a third-party vendor to assist in working off the backlog.
- Support: Encouragement from leadership, including the Governor, Commissioner and ESD Senior Leadership, was critical for success. The leadership team at the Division messaged the urgency for the work, but then gave the team the encouragement and protection so that the analysts could focus on reviewing the applications. The support helped build trust and boost team morale, so analysts felt confident about their work. Supervisory and line staff were also added to allow analysts to focus on the applications themselves.
- Created Last Call Team: After the 90-day review period, uncompleted applications were sent to a dedicated team of three employees who were given 30 days to finalize the remaining determinations.
There was a huge training component up front. That served to level set everyone on what they needed to be doing and how to do it.
The Results
The nearly 4,000 backlog applications have been cleared. For the first time in decades, Empire State Development’s Division of Minority and Women’s Business Development is operating without a backlog. Today, any new applications are reviewed and processed within 90 - 120 days.
The improved process, built-in training, additional supervisors, and quality assurance steps helps with sustainability moving forward. The Division continues to process applications in a brisk pace while maintaining rigorous standards, and several thousands have been processed since the backlog was cleared.
Before this effort, the MWBE Customer Care Team was besieged with questions and frustrations from businesses about their applications. Now, a business has a single point of contact during their application process and confident that they will receive a final determination in a timely fashion.
90-95 percent of the calls our Customer Care Group worked on were from folks saying when am I going to hear back about my application. Now, all those are gone.