The HUB Program Changed. What This Means for Your HSP.

If you bid on Texas government contracts, the solicitation probably requires a HUB Subcontracting Plan. The HSP is where you identify subcontracting opportunities, solicit certified Historically Underutilized Businesses to fill them, and document the effort. Under Texas Government Code § 2161.252, a noncompliant HSP does not get a deficiency notice. It gets your bid rejected. That has not changed. The pool you solicit from has.

What the rules do now

Permanent “VetHUB” rules took effect May 12, 2026, converting the program to a veteran-focused model. The practical consequence is the size of the certified pool. It went from roughly 15,790 certified HUBs at the start of FY 2025 to a few hundred service-disabled-veteran-owned firms when the change first took hold, and the Comptroller’s public vendor directory was rebuilt as the VetHUB directory. The HSP rule itself did not change. A plan solicits whoever the directory lists as certified for the opportunity. Today that means VetHUBs.

The litigation, in one paragraph

Decertified contractors are challenging the rules in Travis County. The plaintiffs contend that the Legislature, not the agency, defines the HUB program, and that the Comptroller exceeded his authority. The Comptroller’s office maintains that the old program’s race- and sex-based preferences were unconstitutional and that VetHUB brings state contracting in line with the Texas and U.S. constitutions. The case survived the State’s attempt to end it and is headed toward a merits setting. But no injunction is in force, so the VetHUB rules govern.

Verify certification the week you submit

Treat an HSP built on last year’s subcontractor list as unverified. A subcontractor certified at the start of a pursuit may not be certified on submission day. The Comptroller’s vendor search portal, now the CMBL-VetHUB Directory Search, covers both the Centralized Master Bidders List and the VetHUB directory (“VetHUBs Only” or “VetHUBs on CMBL”). Dated printouts preserve what it showed. If a dispute arises later, proof of what the directory said the week of the bid is worth more than a recollection of it.

Good-faith efforts are now the default, not the fallback

With the certified pool a fraction of its former size, most primes will not be able to fill every subcontracting opportunity with a certified HUB. The HSP rules have always had a path for that. The Comptroller’s rule, 34 TAC § 20.285, implementing § 2161.252, recognizes two ways to get there.

• The safe harbor. If the dollars you commit to certified HUBs meet or exceed the HUB goal, that commitment alone is your good-faith effort — no outreach notices, no seven-day wait, no rejection log. What you give the agency instead is names: the specific HUBs, and the dollars going to each, so the agency can verify certification and hold you to it during the contract. The goal is the statewide goal or the agency’s own, whichever is higher.
• Notice and solicitation. The method most primes will now rely on. Notice to at least three Texas-certified HUBs for each subcontracting opportunity, at least seven working days for them to respond before the bid goes in, and documentation of every step.

The bottom line

The program is a moving target, and the litigation may yet move it again. None of that changes what is due next month. Verify certification the week of the bid, and document good-faith efforts under § 20.285. A pending lawsuit is not a defense to a rejected bid.

Bill Cobb is a founding partner of Cobb & Gervasi PLLC and a former Deputy Attorney General for Civil Litigation at the Texas Office of the Attorney General.