small business goals | The Contracting Education Academy

May 12, 2015 By AMK

Advocacy group accuses SBA of misapplying law on small business set-asides

As it celebrates National Small Business Week, the Small Business Administration is facing renewed accusations that its efforts to reserve work for small contractors have been distorted by accounting tricks and misapplication of the law that permits large companies to win the awards.

Public Citizen, the nonprofit that pushes an anti-corporate view of trade, the environment, campaign finance and product regulation issues, released a report on Wednesday saying SBA “may be flouting the law,” perhaps for political reasons.

The study of controversies over the SBA-coordinated program to help federal agencies meet the goal of 23 percent of purchases from small businesses draws on the work of the Petaluma, Calif.,-based American Small Business League, which has long battled SBA and the Defense Department over the definition of a small business. But the league, Government Executive has learned, does not think Public Citizen’s conclusions go far enough.

The SBA’s claims “that the government has met or nearly met a requirement to make 23 percent of its purchases from small businesses are misleading and rely on methodologies that conflict with federal law and regulations,” argued the report by Taylor Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/05/advocacy-group-accuses-sba-misapplying-law-small-business-set-asides/112240

January 13, 2015 By AMK

Georgia Tech hosts matchmaking event to aid multiple SE federal agencies in small business outreach

On Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, Georgia Tech will play host to six federal agencies holding an industry day forum for small businesses in the southeast region of the United States.

NOTE: As of Jan. 16, 2015, this event is booked to capacity, and no further registrations are being accepted.

The event is being sponsored by the Atlanta chapter of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) and the regional office of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and is being sponsored on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC).

The event, billed as “Building Partnerships and Collaborating for Success, a Small Business Industry Day and Matchmaking Event,” is open to all businesses in the region who wish to learn more about doing business with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

In addition to federal agencies, representatives of major prime contractors also are expected to be present, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, ICF International, RTI International, WYLE, Westat, Deloitte, and DB Consulting Group, Inc.

Businesses interested in participating in this event must preregister at: http://gtpac.ecenterdirect.com/ConferenceDetail.action?ID=7954.

December 10, 2014 By AMK

Pentagon may be forced to release aircraft manufacturer’s contract data

A little-known unit at the Defense Department may have to release data considered proprietary by a major contractor under a Nov. 23 district court ruling favoring a small business advocacy group.

The Petaluma, Calif.-based American Small Business League on Wednesday announced its legal victory. A northern California district judge agreed that the Pentagon should honor the league’s request under the Freedom of Information Act for data Sikorsky submitted to the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program.

That program since 1990 has authorized negotiation, administration and reporting of subcontracting plans on a plant, division or company-wide basis to “determine whether comprehensive subcontracting plans will result in increased subcontracting opportunities for small business while reducing the administrative burden on contractors,” according to the Pentagon website.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2014/12/pentagon-may-be-forced-release-aircraft-manufacturers-contract-data/100175/

July 17, 2014 By AMK

Both competition and small business participation are down in DoD contracts

The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued its annual report on the “Performance of the Defense Acquisition System,” and at least two elements of the report are sure to get attention:

There’s less competition in DoD contracting, and
Small business goals continue to be missed.

The Defense Department has been losing ground for the last six years in the percentage of contracted work being let competitively. In 2008, 64 percent of DoD contract dollars were spent through competitive awards; by 2013, that rate had fallen to 57 percent.

DoD Competition Trend FY06 - FY13 — This table showing declining competition in DoD contracts is from page 18 of DoD’s report entitled “Performance of the Defense Acquisition System, 2014.”

Of the units with in DoD, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) engaged in the highest rate of competitive contracting (82 percent) while the lowest rate of competitive contracts (41 percent) was demonstrated by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Overall, DoD missed its competitive contracting target of 60 percent, coming in at 57 percent in FY13. No unit within DoD met its competition goal. Even at 82 percent, DLA missed its goal of 86 percent.

The decline in competition comes despite DoD’s formal acquisition policies to increase competition. In 2010, DoD began setting strategic goals to increase the percentage it spends on competitively-awarded contracts. In September of that year, then-Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter issued the memorandum “Better Buying Power: Guidance for Obtaining Greater Efficiency and Productivity in Defense Spending,” which, among other things, aimed to lower weapons costs by increasing competition. Building on those goals, Frank Kendall, Carter’s successor, launched the Better Buying Power 2.0 initiative two years later.

In a related contracting area, DoD’s rate of contract awards to small businesses has been improving since FY11, but awards to small businesses in FY13 lag DoD’s achievements in several recent years, specifically FY03, FY04, FY05, FY06 and FY09.

Small business eligible dollars obligated to small businesses in FY13 totaled $47.2 billion across the Department: $15.9 billion for products (i.e., supplies and equipment) and $31.3 billion for services. Overall, DoD missed its FY13 goal of 22.5 percent by 1.3 percentage points.

DoD Small Business Utilization Rates - FY01-FY13 — This table from page 20 of “Performance of the Defense Acquisition System, 2014” shows that participation by small businesses in DoD contracts lags achievements in FY09 and earlier years.

To read DoD’s complete annual report on acquisition, visit: http://www.acq.osd.mil/docs/Performance-of-Defense-Acquisition-System-2014.pdf.

July 8, 2014 By AMK

Will an obscure Pentagon small business program live on?

Deep in the bowels of the Pentagon is a 25-year-old research project designed to test a new way of encouraging large contractors to pass along some of their work to small businesses.

Known as the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program, it was set up in 1990 to “determine if comprehensive subcontracting plans on a corporate, division or plant-wide basis [instead of for individual contracts] would lead to increased opportunities for small businesses,” according to its website.

Participants in this elongated research project include a dozen major contractors, from Lockheed Martin Corp. to Northrop Grumman Corp.

Yet the program — created when George H. W. Bush was president and housed within the Office of Small Business that reports to the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics — has yet to release a single report or data set. And an array of small business groups have long viewed the project as a wasteful distraction that is actually costing them opportunities by allowing the major firms leeway to get around the governmentwide goal of awarding 23 percent of contract dollars to small business.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2014/07/will-obscure-pentagon-small-business-program-live/87769

On Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, Georgia Tech will play host to six federal agencies holding an industry day forum for small businesses in the southeast region of the United States.

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