Set-aside | The Contracting Education Academy

December 3, 2012 By AMK

Court rules VA can ignore set-asides for veteran-owned businesses on GSA Schedule buys

The Department of Veterans Affairs takes the position that it is not obligated to consider veteran-owned businesses on goods and services it buys through GSA’s Federal Supply Schedule, and now the VA has a court decision that backs its stance.

On November 27, 2012, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the VA has discretion to procure goods and services from GSA’s Federal Supply Schedule without first considering a set-aside acquisition for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs) or veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs).

The ruling is a departure from several recent U.S. Government Accountability Office decisions. The GAO has consistently ruled that the VA must comply with the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006 before conducting a GSA Schedule buy. The 2006 Act created the “Veterans First” contracting program that gives priority to SDVOSBs and VOSBs in VA acquisitions. The VA has maintained that the GAO’s interpretation of the 2006 Act was wrong and instructed its contracting officers to not apply the “Veterans First” principles to Schedule contracting.

The Kingdomware case represents the first time a court has ruled on the question of whether the GSA Schedule program is influenced by the terms of the “Veterans First” program.

In siding with the VA’s position, the Kingdomware decision found that the 2006 Act “is at best ambiguous as to whether it mandates a preference for SDVOSBs and VOSBs for all VA procurements.” The Federal Claims Court ruled:

The [VA] Secretary’s discretion to set contracting goals for SDVOSBs and VOSBs under the [“Veterans First” Act] contradicts plaintiff’s interpretation of the statute as creating a mandatory SDVOSB and VOSB set-aside procedure for each and every procurement . . . the goal-setting nature of the statute clouds the clarity plaintiff would attribute to the phrase “shall award” . . . and renders the [“Veterans First”] ambiguous as to its application to other procurement vehicles, such as the FSS [GSA’s Federal Supply Schedule].

The bottom line of the Kingdomware decision is that the VA did not act arbitrarily and capriciously when it used GSA Schedule contracts without first determining the appropriateness of a set-aside for SDVOSBs or VOSBs.

The full decision can be downloaded here: Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States.

October 10, 2012 By AMK

DoD carries weight of governmentwide small business goal

For the federal government to finally hit its 23 percent small business goal, the Defense Department will have to step up its efforts to contract with small firms. But the nature of DoD’s large contracts often leave out small companies.

In four of the last five years, if DoD had made its small business contracting goal, the federal government would have hit its overall goal. In fiscal 2011, the government fell $5.4 billion short. The Defense Department, with a goal of 22.28 percent for small business contracting that year, missed its mark by $7.2 billion. Each agency negotiates with the Small Business Administration its own small business prime-contracting goal.

Defense contracts make up two-thirds of the entire government’s contracting expenditures. DoD is best known for buying planes, tanks and ships — often products and services out of the scope of small companies. Last year, for example, DoD spent tens of billions of dollars across 11 product codes that included everything from guided space missiles to space vehicles. Of that, less than 1 percent went to small businesses.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/522/3058191/DoD-carries-weight-of-governmentwide-small-business-goal.

(This story is part one of Federal News Radio’s special report, The Small Business Dilemma.)

September 26, 2012 By AMK

Improvements to how agencies buy goods, services bear out little fruit

President Barack Obama put improving the federal acquisition process at the center of his management initiatives. Over the last three years, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy focused on three broad goals:

Demonstrating fiscal responsibility – OFPP wants agencies to ensure competition, reduce the number of high risk contracts, such as time and materials and labor hours types, and improve the efficiency of their buying by, in part, moving toward strategic sourcing to take advantage of the government’s size.
Strengthening the acquisition workforce – The goal is to have a better trained and equipped contracting officers and contracting officer’s representatives.
Performance of inherently governmental and critical functions – Agencies have been reviewing the makeup of their contractor and employee workforces and figuring out the best balance of the two, paying close attention to jobs that should only be done by federal employees.

None of these areas are new. Under other administrations, OFPP’s goals would have looked very similar.

The biggest difference, however, is the attention many of these goals received from the White House. And that’s why the expectations, in some regards, were greater than ever before. At the same time, the attention to reducing agency budgets led to a more in-depth focus on better acquisition performance.

In part 4 of Federal News Radio’s special week-long multimedia series, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the last Four Years, we focus on how the administration performed against many of their top acquisition initiatives.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?sid=3020986&nid=1011.

August 30, 2012 By AMK

FAR clause on small business R&D set asides to be confusing no more

The writers of federal regulations controlling procurements say a clause telling contracting officers when to set aside research and development contracts worth more than the simplified acquisition threshold needs clarification.

In an Aug. 10 notice in the Federal Register, the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council says language in FAR 19.502-2(b) regarding setting aside R&D contracts for small businesses when worth more than the simplified acquisition threshold (currently $150,000) is the subject of a clarification request from the Small Business Administration.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/far-clause-small-business-rd-set-asides-be-confusing-no-more/2012-08-20?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss.

July 12, 2012 By AMK

Vet-owned small firms received 20 percent of VA FY 2011 contracts

The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded 20 percent of its contract dollars to veteran-owned small businesses in fiscal year 2011, exceeding the department goal set by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

According to a VA release, Shinseki set a goal of 12 percent for veteran-owned small businesses.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.executivegov.com/2012/07/vet-owned-small-firms-received-20-of-va-fy-2011-contracts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+execgov+%28Executive+Gov%29.

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