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August 17, 2020 By cs

Agencies exceed SBA’s women-owned small business contracting goal after years of falling short

Small businesses have a big stake in the federal marketplace, and the Small Business Administration sets a high bar for the rest of the federal government to do business with them.
Click on image above to see complete Small Business Scorecard.

Agencies met many of those standards last year, according to SBA’s annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard, awarding nearly $133 billion in small-business prime contracts and exceeding SBA’s goal to have 5% of prime contracts go to women-owned small businesses.

This marks only the second year that agencies met or exceeded the women-owned small business contracting goal since SBA set that benchmark, although agencies have fallen just shy of the governmentwide goal in recent years.

Eight agencies earned an ‘A+’ on the scorecard and 14 agencies received an ‘A.’ Agencies that showed the most improvement include the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Veterans Affairs — which both went from a ‘B’ to an ‘A.’

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/08/agencies-exceed-women-owned-small-business-contracting-goal-years-after-falling-short/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: EDWOSB, SBA, small business, small business goals, woman owned business, WOSB

August 4, 2020 By cs

SBA looks to tighten up certification process for women-owned small businesses

Women-owned small businesses, take note: the Small Business Administration is changing the certification process for doing business with the federal government.

Following a 2015 mandate from Congress, SBA will end its self-certification process for women-owned small businesses on October 15.  This comes after the agency’s inspector general found contract awards were going to vendors that didn’t meet the criteria for the program.

Business owners since last Wednesday have been able to submit their applications through the online platform, but SBA will only begin issuing decisions on those submitted applications on Oct. 15, the last day of the self-certification process.

Alisa Sheard, a program manager in SBA Women’s Contracting Office, said businesses already certified through the WOSB program must also go through the new certification process, requiring business owners to copy information found on their SAM.gov profile and transfer it to SBA’s online certification platform.

“Everyone will still need to submit answers to questions and upload documents because there’s no data migration. Those documents that were in the different system are not in this beta certified system, so they will have to upload all of those documents,” Sheard said in an interview.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/07/sba-looks-to-tighten-up-certification-process-for-women-owned-small-businesses/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: beta.certify.sba.gov, certification, Certify.gov, EDWOSB, SAM, SAM.gov, SBA, self-certification, System for Award Management, woman owned business, WOSB

May 21, 2020 By cs

SBA issues final rule implementing certification for women-owned small businesses

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) on May 11, 2020, published its long-awaited Final Rule implementing important changes for Women-Owned Small Business Concerns (WOSBs) and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business Concerns (EDWOSBs) participating in the Procurement Program for Women-Owned Small Business Concerns (Program).

Among other things, the Final Rule requires a certification for businesses competing for set-aside or sole source contracts under the Program, and to those seeking to be awarded multiple award contracts for pools reserved for WOSBs and EDWOSBs. It also changes EDWOSB requirements to be consistent with the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Program.

The rule becomes effective on July 15, 2020; however, it’s important to note that many of the specific changes do not go into effect until Oct. 15, 2020.

Some of the important points are summarized here in more detail: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/government-contracts-procurement-ppp/934468/sba-issues-final-rule-implementing-certification-for-women-owned-small-businesses

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: 8(a), business development, certification, competition, economically disadvantaged, EDWOSB, rulemaking, SBA, self-certification, set-aside, WOSB

November 12, 2019 By cs

Academy provides customized instruction on small business certification to national association

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech provided four hours of intensive instruction to a group of 90 counselors on the topic of “Teaching Your Clients How To Obtain a Small Business Certification.”
APTAC 2019 Workshop
Representatives of PTACs across the country attended the certification workshop.

The workshop, held in Washington, DC on Nov. 10th, was conducted as a part of the semi-annual national training conference held by the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC).  Members of APTAC work for procurement technical assistance centers (PTACs) across the country.  PTACs provide assistance to businesses — primarily small businesses — who wish to compete for government contracts.

Guest instructor and small business expert Steven J. Koprince conducted the workshop on behalf of the Academy.  He is the founder and former managing partner of Koprince Law LLC.    Earlier this year, he retired from active practice of law, but he continues to be involved in government contracting as a teacher and writer.  Koprince has served as an instructor for The Academy on previous engagements with APTAC and with the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

Training materials included a certification handbook and a flash drive containing resources such as customizable training presentations.

The Academy’s program manager Alexis Kirksey provided an orientation to the workshop’s training resources.  Each attendee received a 100-page instruction manual on four different types of small business certifications, including fact sheets on each program, and a flash drive containing customizable PowerPoint presentations and dozens of other resource materials which PTAC counselors may use to counsel and train their clients.

The workshop’s objectives were:

  1. Learning the eligibility requirements for each small business category.
  2. Gaining insights into the preparation process for making a certification application.
  3. Identifying each of the steps of the application process.
  4. Learning how a small business can leverage certification in the federal marketplace.

The workshop provided an explanation of small business size standards, and then launched into a detailed examination of the 8(a) Business Development Program; the HUBZone Program; the Veteran-Owned and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Programs; and the Woman-Owned and Economically-Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business Programs.

Workshop participants learned about important concepts applied by the federal government in the certification process such as unconditional ownership and direct ownership.  In order to be eligible for certification, the owners must be in charge of such activities as strategic policy-setting, day-to-day management, and overall administrative responsibility for business operations.

Workshop attendees listen carefully to instruction provided by Steven J. Koprince.

The significance of what is known as “affiliation” was also a topic of the workshop.  Affiliation exists when one business controls or has the power to control another, or when a third party controls or has the power to control both businesses. Control may arise through ownership, management, or other relationships.  If another business controls a certification applicant’s business, this may be a disqualifier for small business certification.

Attendees also learned about all of the documentation requirements associated with each type of small business certification.  In addition, the workshop addressed what is called the “presumption-of-loss” rule, which provides that if a business misrepresents its small business size or status, there is a presumption of loss to the government equal to the entire value of any contract or subcontract received as a result of the misrepresentation.

Multiple paths exist for submitting certification applications.  Workshop participants learned about self-certification within the System for Award Management, certification through the Small Business Administration’s on-line portals, and certification through the Veterans Administration.

The workshop concluded with advice PTAC counselors can give to their clients about following-up on their certification applications and how to leverage their small business certifications once granted.  Tips included the need to research both federal spending and contract forecasts, the importance of responding to Requests for Information, and the roles played by Procurement Center Representatives, Small Business Officers, and Small Business Liaison Officers.  Also discussed was the use of certification branding, teaming and joint venturing, how to keep certifications updated, and participation in outreach events.

The Academy is available to conduct this and other customized training workshops on any topic associated with government contracting.  Contact us by email at info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu for further information.

Filed Under: Academy News Tagged With: 8(a), acquisition training, APTAC, certification, Contracting Academy, EDWOSB, Georgia Tech, GSA Schedules, HUBZone, SDVOSB, small business, training resources, VOSB, WOSB

June 27, 2018 By AMK

SBA IG: 89 percent of WOSB sole source contracts were improper

Nearly 90% of women-owned small business sole source contracts reviewed by the SBA Office of Inspector General (OIG) were improper, according to a startling report issued last week.

In the study, the SBA OIG concluded that because of pervasive flaws in the award of WOSB and EDWOSB sole source contracts, “there was no assurance that these contracts were awarded to firms that were eligible to receive sole-source awards under the Program.”  And if that wasn’t enough, the SBA OIG reiterated its position that, as a legal matter, it is improper to award any WOSB or EDWOSB sole source contract to a self-certified company.

The SBA OIG studied 56 WOSB and EDWOSB sole source contracts awarded between January 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017.  This pool “represented 81 percent of the Program’s contracts awarded on a sole-source basis for this time period.”

The results were startling: SBA OIG determined that “Federal agencies’ contracting officers and firms did not comply with Federal regulations for 50 of the 56 Program sole-source contracts, valued at $52.2 million.”  As a result, there was no assurance that these contracts were awarded to eligible WOSBs and EDWOSBs.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/women-owned-small-business-program/sba-inspector-general-89-of-wosb-sole-source-contracts-were-improper/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: certification, EDWOSB, eligibility, fraud, IG, OIG, SBA, set-aside, woman owned business, WOSB

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