small business | The Contracting Education Academy

January 22, 2020 By cs

The 5 trends likely to shape federal contracting in 2020

Government contracting trends that defined fiscal 2019, such as increases in “as a service” and IT consolidation, are likely to continue into FY20.

But several new programs and initiatives are likely to shape the contracting landscape in FY20.

A new report from contract analysts at Bloomberg Government released Jan. 7 broke down these areas likely to mold government contracting trends in 2020:

Best-in-class: IT consolidation
Multiple Award Schedule consolidation
Government buying “as a service”
Small-Business Runway Extension Act will begin affecting contracts
Cybersecurity will become cost of doing business

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2020/01/08/the-5-trends-likely-to-shape-federal-contracting-in-2020/

January 20, 2020 By cs

Businessman who tried to ‘own every dog on the track’ sentenced for conspiring to bribe VA contract specialist

The Justice Department announced in Denver last week the sentencing of a businessman who engaged in a conspiracy with a Veterans Affairs’ contracting official to manipulate contract awards to benefit a consulting company that purportedly represented service-disabled veteran owned small businesses.

Anthony Bueno was sentenced to serve 30 months in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for his role in a conspiracy to bribe a VA official so that clients of his company would gain an unfair advantage in the VA contracting process. Bueno was remanded into custody immediately after the sentencing hearing.

The VA’s contracting official, Dwane Nevins, previously pleaded guilty in September 2019 to every count of an indictment charging him with this scheme, including counts of conspiracy, receiving bribes, extortion, and criminal conflicts of interests. He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 19, 2020.

According to court records:

Bueno and his business partner, Robert Revis, agreed to help an undercover FBI agent, who was posing as a veteran and small business owner, bribe Nevins, a contracting specialist at the VA’s Network Contracting Office in Colorado.
As part of the bribery scheme, Bueno and Revis, working with Nevins, agreed to submit bids from small businesses owned by veterans disabled during military service (one of whom was the undercover FBI agent) under contract with Buenon and Revis’ consulting company so that federal contracts would be set aside for only those companies.
As Bueno explained to the undercover agent, the conspirators would then “own all the dogs on the track,” meaning their clients were guaranteed to get the contracts.
Bueno, Revis and Nevins worked to conceal the nature of the bribe payments by either kicking back to Nevins a portion of the payments made to the consulting company, or by asking the consulting company’s clients to pay Nevins directly for sham training classes related to federal contracting.

Robert Revis pleaded guilty in April 2019 to an Information charging him with a single count of supplementing the salary of a federal official. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2020. Bueno pleaded guilty on September 17, 2019.

Bueno has also pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money arising from a completely separate wire fraud scheme in which he used false representations about investment opportunities to take over a million dollars from several victims. Sentencing in that case, pending before United States District Judge William J. Martinez, is scheduled for January 23, 2019.

The case was jointly investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, with substantial assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/businessman-sentenced-two-and-half-years-imprisonment-conspiring-bribe-veterans-affairs

December 23, 2019 By cs

SBA ‘beats the odds’ by finalizing several major contracting regulations

In November 2018, Federal News Network and procurement expert Larry Allen set some odds about whether certain acquisition regulations would be completed sometime in 2019.

For the most part, the odds makers were not optimistic, given the fact that during 2017 and 2018, the number of FAR rules that were either proposed or finalized were scarce.

So here we are a year later, and it’s nice to be able to report that the Small Business Administration, at least, may just have beaten the odds on several important procurement provisions.

Over the last few weeks, SBA finalized rules to improve the HUBZone program, to change the way the government calculates small business sizes based on earnings and a half dozen other rules that have been in the works since the 2015.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/12/sba-beats-the-odds-by-finalizing-several-major-contracting-regulations/

December 6, 2019 By cs

DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification: Are smaller companies prepared?

New requirements mean contractors will have to pay to play. What does this mean for small businesses in the defense industry?

The cybersecurity posture of the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) supply chain is only as strong as its weakest contractor. When considering the DIB supply chain includes 300,000 contractors with sensitive government data, and around 290,000 of them are not subject to strict cybersecurity requirements or oversight, something needs to change.

Leading that change is the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment – OUSD(A&S) – which has developed the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), an agile set of unified cybersecurity standards to ensure the security of government data on DIB networks.

Keep reading this article at: https://securityboulevard.com/2019/11/dods-cybersecurity-maturity-model-certification-are-smaller-companies-prepared/

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.”

**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:

Learning the eligibility requirements for each small business category.
Gaining insights into the preparation process for making a certification application.
Identifying each of the steps of the application process.
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.

Government contracting trends that defined fiscal 2019, such as increases in “as a service” and IT consolidation, are likely to continue into FY20.

In November 2018, Federal News Network and procurement expert Larry Allen set some odds about whether certain acquisition regulations would be completed sometime in 2019.

New requirements mean contractors will have to pay to play. What does this mean for small businesses in the defense industry?

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.”

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