Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock has formally ended all regional agreements tied to the state’s old Historically Underutilized Business program, marking another step in his overhaul of how Texas handles race- and sex-based preferences in state contracting.
Hancock announced Thursday that all regional Memoranda of Agreements (MOAs) connected to the HUB program have now expired, following 60‑day termination notices his office issued in December as part of the transition to Veteran Heroes United in Business, or VetHUB.
“Texas has ended DEI-based preferences in state contracting and replaced them with a program that is fair, focused and constitutional,” Hancock said. “We eliminated race- and sex-based classifications, reduced layers of bureaucracy and placed responsibility for certification within one accountable office. Most importantly, we made service-disabled veterans the focus of this program.”
Under the previous HUB framework, the comptroller’s office relied on MOAs with outside entities to help certify businesses under race-, ethnicity-, and sex-based categories. Those agreements supported a network of local and regional partners that processed applications and maintained HUB vendor lists.
Last year, Hancock froze the HUB program and then restructured it under emergency rules, renaming it VetHUB and limiting eligibility to small businesses owned and operated by veterans with at least a 20 percent service‑connected disability.
The move removed race and sex as factors in certification and was pitched as bringing the program into line with constitutional equal protection requirements and Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to end DEI preferences in state agencies.
Since those rules took effect, the comptroller’s office has handled all certifications directly instead of relying on outside partners.
The now‑expired MOAs included agreements with multiple city, chamber, and nonprofit entities that had previously served as HUB certification partners. Among them were the City of Austin, City of Houston, El Paso Chamber of Commerce, Houston Minority Supplier Development Council, South Central Texas Regional Certification Agency, Tri‑County Regional Black Chamber of Commerce, Women’s Business Council Southwest, Golden Triangle Minority Business Council, Southwest Minority Supplier Development Council, and the Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council.
Hancock’s office framed the move as “the final step” in streamlining the program by eliminating duplicative administrative arrangements and consolidating authority inside the comptroller’s office.
Service‑disabled veterans were already an eligible category under the former HUB structure. With VetHUB, they are now the sole focus.
At the time of the relaunch, 547 HUB‑certified businesses were enrolled exclusively under service‑disabled veteran status. According to the comptroller’s office, the program now serves 1,075 active VetHUB‑certified businesses—the highest number of service‑disabled veteran participants in the program’s history.
