It is the District's purpose to maximize the local economic impact of the District's annual operating and capital spending for the benefit of the District's taxpayers.   We work to utilize consultants, contractors, vendors, and local workers reflective of the diversity of the customers we serve who pay taxes and user fees for our services & infrastructure improvements.

All procurement activity, including the procurement of professional services and construction contracts, includes the solicitation of disadvantaged businesses such that certified Small, Women, and Minority Businesses are allowed the maximum feasible opportunity to compete on all District contracts.
 
Professional services procured for the District will often include a Local Office Preference, and when feasible, a mentor protégé relationship, designed to encourage firms to maintain a local presence and build the capacity of SWMBE firms. 

In construction contracts, we will not only work for the full inclusion of SWMBE firms, but we will make sure that the jobs pay prevailing wages so that workers can support a family.  The District's Local Worker Requirement promotes the utilization of local workers.  Projects often call for at least 40% of project hours to be performed by from workers in sanitary sewer service area (SSSA) and 20% of project hours from low income workers or workers from low income areas as part of our Target Area Employment Requirements.  Furthermore, we encourage more new entrants to the construction industry via our apprentice utilization policy. 

We work to connect our contractors with the workers that we are training in our workforce training program with the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership & BIGSTEP.   We regularly meet with contractors that are awarded contracts to discuss how they can access the pipeline of workers coming out of the apprentice training system and require good faith efforts to create maximum employment opportunities.