Procurement warns enforceability issues; committee amends reentry hiring requirement to 5% of new hires

CB101 would require that qualifying county procurement contracts valued at $1,000,000 or more include participation by returning citizens. During committee review, procurement staff said measuring "5% of work hours" across multiple subcontracting tiers would be difficult to track and enforce; instead they recommended counting 5% of new hires and administering the requirement through the county’s existing Employee Prince George's hiring program.

Alice Williams, director of procurement, told the committee the existing local hiring program provides a measurable path for implementation and that requiring 5% of new hires through that program would be easier to manage than attempting to compute work hours across tiers. The committee adopted amendments to strike the "work hours" measure in favor of a new-hire metric, limited application to new contracts (with renewals handled in procurement negotiations), and then voted the bill favorable, 4-0.