figure head, but in actuality, being performed by someone else. we require certification through governmental entities because the programs look at control and do look at owner ship control and management of a firm before certification. so what we have basically done, we have basically for a lack of staff resources passed that onus to another governmental entities and i'm sure other governmental entities probably don't want to hear this, but we would accept their certification, provided that they certify the firm. as an example, we do accept certification that is certified by the california public utilities commission wmbe clearinghouse program, a certification process that takes place there and we do accept certification through the department of general services, office

of small disadvantaged/disabled business and they go through a certification process in that respect. we certainly accept the california unified certification program, which is the u.s. department of transportation disadvantaged business enterprise program certifications. and they undergo a rigorous certification process there. the one thing that we do look at among all of the certification programs is the caveat that the firm's revenue meet the size and standards established by this commission. so with the clearinghouse program is an example, the california public utilities commission program, there is not a size limit to that. so we confirm/affirm size and standardss by looking at and requesting their three-years' tax returns, so we can take the average and ensure it meet ours size and standards. >> it used to be a long time ago, we

used to be certified by the city and then we started our own. i don't know why we can't do that now? >> certainly if i may, through the chair, it's more than just a lack of resources. for the small business, whether professional services or construction, that small business or micro-lbe/dbe would be certifying many, many times, producing tax returns for the city and county of san francisco and producing that same set of certifications to get certify the feds. same documentation to get certified with state and on top of it, we were asking for that. we have found also through the feedback, yes, we used to do certification and quite

burdensome from owners, who said they just produced that information from the city and county and states and feds. it was really frankly burden some on the businesses.