Contractors ordered to post DOD fraud hotline info
September 26, 2011 by cs
Make room on the bulletin board near contractor coffee makers and break rooms.
The Defense Department now requires its defense contractors to post the DOD inspector general’s fraud hotline posters in common work areas. The rule took affect Sept. 16, according to a notice in the Federal Register the same day.
The DOD IG didn’t think the old rules went far enough because the Federal Acquisition Regulation allowed a contractor to not post any other agency’s hotline numbers other than those of the Homeland Security Department if the company had its own business ethics program with a means of reporting fraud or waste.
However, the DOD IG believes the FAR might be limiting the use of its own hotline. Without a poster, an employee wouldn’t know the IG’s phone number.
“According to the DOD IG, some contractors’ posters may not be as effective as the DOD poster in advertising the hotline number, which is integral to the fraud program,” the notice explained. The DOD IG is also revising its poster to tell employees of federal whistleblower protections.
The rule amends the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, or DFARS.
In response to the proposal in May, some experts were concerned that the new hotline posters could replace the contractor as the first line of defense against waste and fraud. It would also get the IG involved in what often turns out to be human resource issues or concerns about day-to-day activities that may need immediate attention.
But the IG said its staff knows the difference between an urgent matter about a defense contract and a routine personnel issue.
The rule applies to contracts and subcontracts that exceed $5 million. It does not apply to purchases of commercial items or for work that will be performed entirely outside the United States if the contract exceeds $5 million.
About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement at Washington Technology. This article appeared on Sept. 19, 2011 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/09/19/dod-ig-required-fraud-hotline-posters.aspx?s=wtdaily_200911.
Learn ‘soup to nuts’ of government contracting November 7-18
September 15, 2011 by cs
Serious about learning everything about government contracting? Interested in learning about contracting from a federal contracting officer’s point-of-view? Looking for an opportunity to learn government contracting in a comprehensive and interactive way?
If you answered “yes” to these three questions, then “Mission-Focused Contracting” – a two-week course offered by The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech — is the place to be.
This very comprehensive course is being offered on the Georgia Tech campus over a two-week period, November 7 through 18, 2011. (Please note that there will be no class on Friday, November 11 in observance of Veterans’ Day.)
Mission-Focused Contracting is the capstone course for Level I contracting professionals and all non-contracting personnel who play a role in the acquisition process. This class is applicable to both government and industry purchasing and engages participants in the entire government acquisition process, from meeting with the government customer to completing the contract close-out process. Throughout this course, participants have the opportunity to learn and apply problem-solving and negotiation skills.
The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech (The Academy) is an approved equivalency training provider to the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and provides continuing education training to acquisition and government contracting professionals as well as to business professionals working for government contractors or pursuing opportunities in federal contracting.
How You Will Benefit:
By attending this course, participants will learn how to:
- Complete market research to identify procurement sources
- Develop a bid or proposal package
- Evaluate proposals and award contracts
- Monitor contractor performance, apply remedies, and make proper contract payments
- Modify contracts, exercise options, and complete the contract closeout process
Business people taking this course have the unprecedented opportunity to sit side-by-side with government contracting personnel to learn the ins and outs of federal contracting. In addition, many of the principles of federal contracting apply to state and local government procurement.
To learn more about this course — and to register– please visit: http://www.pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-120-mission-focused-contracting.
Obama’s regulatory chief announces reforms at 30 agencies
May 31, 2011 by cs
Fleshing out agency responses to President Obama’s push to rethink regulations, Office of Information and Regulatory Administrator Cass Sunstein on Thursday announced alterations to long-standing rules under way at 30 federal agencies that together, he said, could save billions in dollars and millions of staff hours.
In his summary of agency progress 120 days after Obama’s Jan. 18 executive order, Sunstein said current paperwork reduction efforts at the Transportation and Labor departments and the Environmental Protection Agency alone could save $1 billion and tens of millions of work hours for state and local governments. He spoke at a talk titled “A Regulatory Look-Back: A First Look” at the American Enterprise Institute, his former employer, and he published a related op-ed on “21st-Century Regulation” in the May 26 Wall Street Journal.
The Obama initiative, Sunstein said, is “a corrective to national debate on regulation that has become polarized and stylized in a way not helpful. One side,” he said, “defends reductions in deaths on the highway, fighting fraud and abuse, keeping air and water clean and our food safe. But more recently, the other side says such regulations impair competitiveness, undermine innovation and ultimately cost jobs.
“They are legitimate arguments, but we can’t be solving serious problems in the abstract. The polarized debate is stuck in the past.”
A modern regulatory approach, he said, cannot rely on “anecdotes or intuition,” but instead must move toward “real-world random testing” of the benefits and harms of regulations. This requires “a change in culture in Washington to focus constantly on what is and what is not working,” he said. In the future, “agencies must hard-wire such scrutiny into agency processes.”
Today’s professional regulators “know much more than they knew during the New Deal and the Great Society,” or even during the 1980s and 1990s, he added. “Now we have state-of-the-art technology for cataloging the impact, risks and costs of regulations. Sometimes in reducing one risk, you increase another and there are ancillary harms,” he said. “But there are also ancillary benefits, and lives are saved.” What is desirable, he said, is “free choice, which both provides liberty and costs less.” Simpler regulations and public disclosure “help produce informed choices and creative approaches,” Sunstein said.
Sunstein made a bid to bridge the partisan divide. “It’s true that people’s values differ, but when the evidence is clear, it will lead in a direction even if there is an intensive difference in values. If a regulation brings big costs and little benefit, then citizens are unlikely to like it regardless of whether they are elephants or donkeys,” he said.
Examples of agencies’ current work include 70 initiatives at Transportation, 50 reforms at the Health and Human Resources Department, and 12 short-term high-priority projects at EPA. The Treasury Department has a five-year paperless initiative that will save 12 million pounds of paper and $400 million, Sunstein said.
EPA recently decided that that classifying milk as an oil — and thus requiring precautions to prevent oil spills — was an unjustifiable burden on dairy farmers, and so the resulting easing of rules will save industry $1 billion in the next decade. Similarly, EPA determined that gas stations no longer need air pollution recovery systems because modern vehicles do the job, saving upwards of $60 million annually, he said. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, he said, will save millions of dollars by eliminating 1.9 million annual hours of redundant employer reporting.
“Many of the [reforms] focus on the small businesses that create jobs,” Sunstein said. “And some are a fundamental rethinking of how things have been done.”
He is also determined to rid the Code of Federal Regulations of references to countries that “no longer exist.”
Laying out four principles, Sunstein said modern regulations should encourage public participation through ready access to scientific and technical information; should be harmonized and simplified to boost innovation; should use quantification to catalog costs and benefits; and emphasize freedom of choice, which “promotes compliance.”
In response to a questioner, Sunstein acknowledged that some of the recent changes were expansions of regulations rather than eliminations.
The National Association of Manufacturers, which has long been critical of Obama’s approach to regulation, reacted to Sunstein’s announcement with a statement: “Manufacturers are encouraged by the Obama administration’s efforts to streamline or remove several outdated and unnecessary regulations to allow manufacturers to focus on what matters most — creating jobs and economic growth. However, manufacturing workers will not fully benefit until the crushing burden of proposed new regulations is brought under control.
“The administration has taken several positive steps recently,” the group said. mentioning EPA’s effort on industrial boilers and OSHA’s work on noise standards as indicators that the administration has heard the concerns of manufacturers. “But new burdensome regulations such as those proposed by EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and change ozone standards are a real threat to job creators and the economy. While today’s announcement is a great step, more must be done to limit the cumulative burden of regulations on businesses.”
Matt Madia, regulatory policy analyst for OMB Watch, a monitoring nonprofit, had a wait-and-see response. “There’s nothing wrong with doing a review,” he said, “but we should not lose sight of the fact that these regulations were written for a reason — to protect the environment, human health and the economy.”
Sunstein said there currently are 120 rules under review at the Office of Management and Budget and that the look back has not caused any noticeable slowdown.
The agency actions released today are for public comment, and should be finalized in “roughly 80 days,” he said.
Sunstein called his initiative “a defining moment” that will have impact decades in the future. He quoted Alexander Hamilton’s first Federalist paper, in which the Founding Father asked whether the country would be guided by “reflection and choice or be forever destined to depend on accident and force.”
– by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – May 26, 2011 at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=47880&dcn=e_gvet
New SBA rules affect small businesses in significant ways
March 21, 2011 by cs
Newly-published rules by the Small Business Administration (SBA) address the justification and approval process associated with large sole-source contract awards to 8(a) firms; address parity among 8(a), HUBZone, and SDVOSB firms; set a minimum for the amount of work an 8(a) firm must do when joint venturing with a large business; and propose increases in the small business size standards for some industries. Public comment is being solicited on the last item.
Specifically, the rules:
- Require federal agencies to issue a Justification and Approval prior to the award of 8(a) sole source contracts over $20 million;
- Clarify a contracting officer’s ability to use discretion when determining whether an acquisition will be restricted to small businesses participating in the 8(a), HUBZone or service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) programs;
- Quantify the amount of work that an 8(a) firm must perform when joint-venturing with a large business; and
- Propose increases in the small business size standards for dozens of service industries in NAICS codes 54 and 81. (The last major size standard changes took place 25 years ago.)
The first two rules were issued as interim rules by the SBA and the Federal Acquisition (FAR) Council, and are effective immediately. The third item is a proposed rule. All were published on March 16, 2011 in the Federal Register.
Here are the details on the rules.
Justification and Approval for 8(a) Sole-Source Awards Above $20M
The FAR Council issued an interim rule implementing Section 811 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. 111-84), which requires federal agencies to issue a Justification and Approval (J&A) prior to awarding a sole-source contract over $20 million under the 8(a) program. The J&A must be approved by an appropriate official (as currently defined by FAR 6.304) and made public after award of the contract. Prior to the enactment of section 811, a sole-source award of a new contract made using the 8(a) contracting authority did not require a J&A, regardless of the dollar value. Under the interim rule, the J&A must document the reasons for making a sole-source award rather than a competitive award under the 8(a) program. The rule institutes no new requirements for sole-source 8(a) awards less than or equal to $20 million. Here is the full text of the rule: Justification and Approval of Sole-Source 8a Contracts 03.16.2011.
Parity Among 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB Programs
The FAR Council issued an interim rule implementing Section 1347 of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-240) and clarifying that there is parity when a contracting officer selects among small businesses participating in the 8(a), HUBZone and SDVOSB programs. Under the interim rule, contracting officers will have the discretion to determine whether an acquisition will be restricted to one of these three programs. The full text of the rule is available here: Socioeconomic Program Parity 03.16.2011.
This interim rule also clarifies that:
- Although there is no order of precedence among the three programs, if a requirement has been accepted by SBA under the 8(a) program, it must remain in the 8(a) program unless SBA agrees to release it;
- For acquisitions exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold (that is, contracts more than $150,000), contracting officers must consider a set-aside or sole source award to a small business under the 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB programs before proceeding with a small business set-aside; and
- The small business set-aside requirement under FAR 19.502-2(a) does not preclude award of a contract to a participant in the 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB programs. SBA regulations give contracting officers the authority to use these programs at dollar levels above the micro-purchase threshold and at or below the simplified acquisition threshold.
It is important to note that the interim rule does not address SBA’s new Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) program. The WOSB program will be addressed as a separate interim rule under FAR Case 2010-015 and implement the SBA’s WOSB Federal Contract Program final rule (75 FR 62258, October 7, 2010). The SBA rule provides for parity between WOSBs and other small business contracting programs.
Minimum Amount of Work 8(a) Firms Must Perform in Joint Ventures
To get access to set-aside contracts, large companies can joint venture with 8(a) companies. But SBA rules now say that the 8(a) firm must perform at least 40 percent of the work of each joint venture contract. Previously, the SBA required that the 8(a) company in a joint venture perform a “significant portion” of a contract’s work.
Service Industries – Small Business Size Standards
The SBA issued a proposed rule increasing the small business size standards for 35 industries and one sub-industry in North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code 54, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services, and one industry in NAICS Code 81, Other Services. Many of the size standards would increase significantly under the proposed rule. For example, several of the NAICS code 54 size standards will increase from $4.5 million - $7 million, to $14 million - $19 million. It is estimated that SBA’s proposed size changes would let up to 9,450 additional firms be eligible for small-business contract preferences. The full text of the proposed rule is available here: Small Business Size Standards – Proposed – 03.16.2011.
The SBA is accepting public comments on the proposed changes to the small business size standards through May 16, 2011.
SBA opens its review of small business regulations
March 18, 2011 by cs
Are you a small business owner frustrated with outdated and often cumbersome regulations from the Small Business Administration? Then SBA wants to hear your suggestions on whether those rules should be streamlined, expanded, or possibly withdrawn altogether.
On Monday, SBA published a notice in the Federal Register asking the public to weigh in on the impact of its regulations and the best way to improve them.
“The primary objectives of this review are to make SBA’s regulatory program more cost-effective and less burdensome on participants in the agency’s programs while continuing to promote economic growth, innovation and job creation,” the notice said. “SBA seeks public input on the design of a plan to use for periodic retrospective review of its regulations and an initial list of the rules to be reviewed under the plan.”
The proposal comes on the heels of President Obama’s January executive order calling for a governmentwide review of all federal regulations. The order said inefficient, out-of-date and burdensome regulations could be repealed if they were stifling private sector job growth.
The order instructs agencies to develop a plan for reviewing their regulations by mid-May. The plan, along with any supporting data, would then be made public, Obama wrote.
While the SBA notice did not cite specific regulations, it did say the retrospective review would focus on small business investment companies, surety bond guarantee, business loans, disaster loans, government contracting and Historically Underutilized Business Zones.
SBA recently concluded an exhaustive review of its 8(a) Business Development Program and now is examining size regulations. Neither will be subject to the new review.
The agency wants the public to comment not only on specific regulations, but also on how it should devise its preliminary plan “with a defined method and schedule for identifying certain significant rules that may be obsolete, unnecessary, unjustified, excessively burdensome, or counterproductive.” Comments also should address how SBA can best evaluate and analyze its regulations and obtain accurate and objective cost data.
Commenters should consider the economic burden the regulation imposes on small business entities and whether the rule is duplicative or overlapping; paperwork could be reduced by allowing electronic submissions; the regulation has been discredited by new scientific information; and the issue could be better handled by trade organizations without federal involvement.
“Comments should focus on regulations that have demonstrated deficiencies,” the notice said. “Comments that rehash debates over recently issued rules will be less useful. The public should focus on rule changes that will achieve a broad public impact, rather than an individual, personal, or corporate benefit.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, encouraged the public to participate in the review.
“Excessive regulations are suffocating the entrepreneurial spirit of America’s almost 30 million small businesses and, regrettably, small firms with fewer than 20 employees bear a disproportionate burden of complying with these rules,” Snowe said in a statement. “To spur job creation and economic growth, it is incumbent upon every level of government to simultaneously pursue sound incentives and eliminate the laws and policies already on the books that are proven impediments to these objectives.”
Earlier this month, Snowe and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced the Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act, which would require agencies to calculate the direct and indirect economic impact of federal regulations. Small business review panels would be installed at all agencies and small businesses also would be allowed to challenge proposed regulations in court.
Comments for the SBA notice must be submitted by April 13. Comments can be submitted electronically at regulations.gov, or mailed to the SBA Office of the General Counsel, 409 Third Street SW., Washington, D.C., 20416.
The review plan, along with an initial list of regulations that will be evaluated, is expected to be complete by late May or early June and will be available on SBA’s Open Government Web page.
– by Robert Brodsky – GovExec.com -March 15, 2011
New regulatory strategy aims to help small businesses
January 25, 2011 by cs
Small business will get greater consideration from regulators who draw up proposed rules.
The Regulatory Flexibility Act already requires agencies to avoid imposing heavy burdens on small companies and search for ways to minimize those burdens. President Barack Obama wants more of that, according to a memo released this morning (Jan. 18, 2011).
Agencies must carry out the regulatory law by allowing small businesses more flexibility in meeting the compliance requirements, he said. They should “take into account the resources available to small entities,” Obama wrote.
For example, Obama directed agency officials to extend the time small businesses have to implement new requirements, such as a new business system.
He wants regulators to consider performance standards rather than meeting detailed design standards. Rules should also simplify reporting and compliance necessities, such as streamlined forms and electronic filing options, the memo states.
The memo also directs agencies to use different standards for small and large companies, or even exempt small companies from particular requirements that larger companies must comply with.
If an agency rule does not have these flexibilities, officials must justify why they aren’t there, the memo states.
“It is especially important for agencies to design regulations in a cost-effective manner consistent with the goals of promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job-creation,” the memo states.
The memo aligns with a small-business task force the administration created in April. One of its duties was to clarify policies that are necessary to aiding small businesses in the federal contracting marketplace.
Today, Obama outlined a new overall regulatory strategy to help boost the economy, along with this small-business memo. In it he pushed for more transparency and accountability in regulatory compliance.
– by Matthew Weigelt – Jan. 18, 2011 – Federal Computer Week
This new federal database is one contractors will want to avoid
January 18, 2011 by cs
The FY2011 defense act puts a contractor’s reckless behavior to the Web.
On the heels of an interim rule to withhold award fees for putting a government employee’s health or safety in danger, a new law will put that information in a database of contractor work history.
In November, the Defense Department amended its own acquisition regulations to require contracting officers to consider reducing or even denying a company’s award fee if it jeopardizes a federal employee. A company also possibly can lose award money for a subcontractor’s negligent behavior.
The interim rule was required by the fiscal 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which became law Oct. 28, 2009.
Now though, the fiscal 2011 defense authorization act, which became law Jan. 7, takes the reckless behavior to the Web.
If DOD officials conclude a contractor put a federal worker’s life in harm’s way, the information can be added to the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, or FAPIIS.
It’s a database of specific information about a contractors’ past work with the government. Contracting officers are required to look at the work history in FAPIIS and to factor it into an award decision. The new law calls for officials to add a final determination of contractor fault to the database.
Meanwhile, as more information detailing companies’ past performances is added to the database, FAPIIS may be the frontier of new bid protests, one procurement lawyer said.
Companies might object to an agency’s inappropriate consideration of a past performance when selecting an awardee, Puja Satiani, an associate at Crowell and Moring law firm, said this week in a webinar on contracting trends in 2011.
Companies might also say there was no meaningful consideration or disclosure of a company’s past performance history before a contract was awarded.
Other government contracting attorneys say 2011 is going to be a tough year for contractors as oversight gets tougher.
“There will be no rest of the weary,” said Dan Forman, a partner at the law firm.
Defense revises rule on contractor business systems
December 8, 2010 by cs
The Defense Department has revised a controversial rule issued early this year on withholding payments from contractors that fail to maintain adequate controls against waste, fraud and abuse.
On Friday, the department published in the Federal Register an amended change to the Defense Acquisition Regulations System that clarifies how federal officials will determine when contractor business systems are deficient.
The rule — the Pentagon’s second crack at developing industry standards for business systems — also lowers the amount of money contracting officials can withhold when documented problems are not corrected.
“Contractor business systems and internal controls are the first line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse,” the modified rule stated. “Weak control systems increase the risk of unallowable and unreasonable costs on government contracts.”
Defense published its draft rule on Jan. 15. During the following two months, the department received 370 comments from 25 respondents. Most of the feedback came from industry officials, who criticized the plan as short-sighted, ill-defined and unnecessarily burdensome.
“Despite a laudable goal of seeking to establish uniform criteria for what constitutes an acceptable business system, the rule falls short of that goal,” wrote the Professional Services Council, a trade association. “It creates more complicated procedures than are necessary to incentivize contractors to ensure that key business systems are ‘acceptable,’ imposes significant burdens on small and midtier businesses doing business with DoD, and introduces mandatory withholds of contractor funds that could easily be disproportionate to the goals to be achieved or to the government’s risk.”
The Pentagon addressed many of industry’s concerns in its revised proposal, offering more specific standards for contractors’ business and accounting systems. Deficiencies in the systems must relate to potential risks to the government, according to Friday’s rule. Critics had complained that in the original proposal, business systems could be judged deficient for reasons that would not put the government at risk of waste or abuse.
“The intent of the rule is to withhold payments when a deficiency exists that impairs the government’s ability to rely on the system’s outputs,” the rule stated. “A system must provide reasonable assurance that the relevant system criteria are satisfied and that the risk of material misstatements caused by error or fraud is low.”
Arguably more significant, the new rule reduces the amount that contracting officers can withhold from firms from 10 percent to 5 percent, or 2 percent for small businesses. If the contractor submits a corrective action plan within 45 days of a noted deficiency, the department will withhold only 2 percent, or 1 percent for small firms. This is down from the original proposal of 5 percent.
For companies with defects in multiple business systems, the cumulative percentage of payments that can be withheld is 20 percent, or 10 percent for small firms. The original proposal set the threshold at 50 percent. The new rule also eliminates a clause that would allow the government to withhold all payments for deficiencies deemed “highly likely to lead to improper contract payments being made,” or problems representing “an unacceptable risk of loss to the government.”
Officials did not attempt to calculate how many small business contractors are expected to be affected by the rule change. But based on several financial triggers and thresholds outlined in the notice, the proposal will generally affect midsize and large firms.
Alan Chvotkin, PSC’s executive vice president and counsel, said he is more comfortable with the revised plan, but that it’s too soon to give his approval. “Substantial improvements have been made,” Chvotkin said. “But, it’s going to take some time to evaluate.”
The rule would provide contracting officers with the authority to withhold payments on cost reimbursement, incentive-type, time and materials, and labor-hour pacts. They also could do so on contracts that provide progress payments based on costs or on a percentage or stage of completion.
A clause would be added to contracts requiring firms to certify that they have no major defects in their systems for accounting; purchasing; estimating; and property, earned value and material management. Auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency and other functional specialists would be charged with documenting the business system deficiencies.
The contracting officer and the auditor must approve any corrections to business systems, according to the notice.
Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted until Jan. 3, 2011, and can be e-mailed to dfars@osd.mil with DFARS Case 2009-D038 in the subject line. Comments also can be mailed to:
Defense Acquisition Regulations System
Attn: Mark Gomersall, OUSD (AT&L)DPAP/DARS
Room 3B855, 3060 Defense Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301-3060
-by Robert Brodsky - GovExec.com - December 6, 2010
No accountability? 21% of federal agencies don’t submit EEO reports
September 2, 2010 by cs
Every year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission releases its annual report, informing the president and Congress of the state of equal-employment opportunity in the federal workforce. But critics say the annual report serves one other purpose: It magnifies what is currently wrong with the federal government’s EEO system.
The recently released 2009 report reveals a stunning lack of compliance, commitment and accountability by a number of agencies and agency leadership—especially when compared with the best practices being employed by The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®.
Consider this sampling of numbers from EEOC’s latest 2009 report:
- Only 79 percent of federal departments and agencies submitted Management Directive 715 (MD-715) reports. The reports detail agency employment by race, national origin, sex and disability and are required under law to be submitted, reviewed and approved annually by the EEOC, which is responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination.
- Only 61 percent of federal departments and agencies heads issued written policy statements, expressing their commitment to EEO and a workplace free of discriminatory harassment, despite an EEOC mandate that this statement “be issued at the beginning of their tenure [and] disseminated to all employees.”
- Only 74 percent of agency EEO directors report directly to their agency head, despite a mandate that they do so.
So what happens to the 21 percent of agencies that do not submit MD-715 reports? Or the 39 percent of agency heads who did not issue written policy statements? Or the 26 percent of agencies that don’t have an EEO director reporting directly to the top person at a department?
“There is absolutely no accountability for those agencies who do not wish to comply with the regulations,” says Carol Dawson, president of EEO Guidance, a national consulting and training company based in Jeffersonville, Ind. “There is nobody doing anything about the percent that is not in compliance; there are no consequences whatsoever.”
In March, DiversityInc released the findings of its second annual DiversityInc Top Federal Agencies for Diversity list in Washington, D.C. The findings demonstrated that while participating federal agencies have made strides in ensuring that their workforces reflect the changing needs and faces of their constituents, they lagged far behind the DiversityInc Top 50 in a number of key areas of diversity management and representation, including:
- Strategies used to promote and show commitment for diversity throughout the organization
- Workforce and recruitment representation for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women and people with disabilities
- Communications about employee-development programs, such as employees and managers participating in employee-resource groups and in mentoring programs
DiversityInc will follow up with federal agencies on Nov. 9 with a program entitled “The Next Steps to Effective Diversity Management.” Expected speakers include John Robinson, chief diversity officer of the State Department, Cari Dominguez, former head of the EEOC, and chief diversity officers of several DiversityInc Top 50 companies. For information on this diversity event, click here.
Dawson worked at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance for 25 years, the agency responsible for ensuring that private-sector employers doing business with the federal government—specifically, all federal contractors that employ 50 or more employees and have government contracts of $50,000 or more—comply with the EEO laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination.
She said the federal government does not tolerate the same kind of behavior within the private sector that it allows in its own ranks. “In private industry, we take them to court. We take their federal contracts away. We put their names out there. We make them miserable. They will suffer greatly if they are not in compliance with far stricter EEO laws,” Dawson says.
But while EEOC is charged with monitoring federal-agency compliance with EEO laws, it does not have the funds or the manpower to monitor what is arguably the largest employer in the United States—the federal government, she said.
Dawson likens the current system to a fox-watching-the-hen-house scenario. Unlike the private sector, federal agencies themselves are responsible for their own internal EEO compliance and for processing and investigating charges of discrimination filed against them by their own employees.
“Until the federal government removes internal compliance and enforcement from the agencies and places it in neutral hands [EEOC], nothing will change,” Dawson says. “The federal agencies must be held accountable, or there is no real need for the EEO regulations.”
Dexter Brooks, the director of federal-sector programs at the EEOC, acknowledges that lack of compliance with EEO guidance and mandates is a problem at a number of federal agencies and departments. “What is our enforcement mechanism? We issue this report to the president and Congress every year stating which agencies are in compliance because they actually control the agencies’ budgets and the way in which they are lead. So that is one way in which we try to seek compliance,” he says. “Actually, it’s the primary way right now because we don’t have sanctioning authority.”
Brooks says the only time the EEOC can issue binding orders to an agency or department is when a deficiency manifests itself into an actual employee complaint.
He says the EEOC has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to “slightly strengthen” the way the EEOC enforces its mandates. “This is not something we take lightly,” he says. “We are trying to get a full understanding of how far we can go to achieve compliance in federal agencies.”
Brooks says when the EEOC finds an agency or department failing to comply with a particular mandate or directive, “we note it as a deficiency and we give feedback to the EEO program and the agency head noting what we find as deficiencies.”
In its annual report, the EEOC also submits “tips” on how to have a more effective EEO program in the federal government. Brooks says another compliance mechanism is the actual complaint process, which he says is more reactive. “Employees who believe they have not received equal opportunities can file complaints of discrimination,” he adds. “We are trying to get agencies to do the proactive work before they see us on the reactive side, which is the complaint side.”
In fact, federal employees are filing more complaints alleging employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability and reprisal. Federal employees filed 16,947 discrimination complaints in fiscal year 2009, 195 more than in 2008, according to a new EEOC report. The increase is smaller than the previous year’s increase: In 2008, there were 584 more discrimination complaints than in 2007.
The rise in 2009 over the previous year is not big, but it is significant because it represents the second year of an increase, reversing what has been a decade of steady declines. “We are watching this trend,” Brooks says.
Asked whether the rise in complaints could be related to the number of agencies and departments that are not complying with EEO guidance mandates, Brooks says he is not sure but “logically, it needs to be explored.”
“It makes sense that if you are not in compliance, you might have higher complaints,” he says. “That makes a lot of sense and it’s something we are going to be studying and tracking.”
Key Findings From the EEOC Report
– By Sam Ali – Aug 27, 2010 – Diversity Inc. – http://diversityinc.com/article/8013/No-Accountability-21-of-Federal-Agencies-Dont-Submit-EEO-Reports/
SBA: Small business procurement scorecard shows progress toward meeting 23% goal
August 30, 2010 by cs
Small businesses won a record $96.8 billion in federal prime contracts in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 (Oct. 1, 2008-Sept. 30, 2009), an increase of more than $3 billion from FY 2008, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s fourth annual small business procurement scorecard released today. This dollar amount represents 21.89 percent of all federal spending – an improvement over FY2008. Additionally, performance in each of the government’s socioeconomic subcategories increased for FY2009.
There was an increase in both dollars and contracting share for every small business category. This represents real progress, but not enough, we must reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that the 23 percent goal is met and exceeded,” SBA Administrator Karen Mills said. “Federal contracts awarded to small businesses are a ‘win-win’ – providing small businesses with the opportunity to grow and create jobs, and offering innovative services and essential goods to the government at great value to the taxpayers.”
Small Business Goaling Summary Report
Small Businesses:
2009 Goal 23%
2009 Percentage 21.89%
2009 Contract Dollars $96.8 billion
2008 Percentage 21.5%
2008 Contract Dollars $93.2 billion
Women Owned Small Business:
2009 Goal 5%
2009 Percentage 3.68%
2009 Contract Dollars $16.3 billion
2008 Percentage 3.40%
2008 Contract Dollars $14.7 billion
Small Disadvantaged Businesses:
2009 Goal 5%
2009 Percentage 7.57%
2009 Contract Dollars $33.5 billion
2008 Percentage 6.76%
2008 Contract Dollars $29.3 billion
Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business:
2009 Goal 3%
2009 Percentage 1.98%
2009 Contract Dollars $8.8 billion
2008 Percentage 1.49%
2008 Contract Dollars $6.4 billion
HUBZone:
2009 Goal 3%
2009 Percentage 2.81%
2009 Contract Dollars $12.4 billion
2008 Percentage 2.34%
2008 Contract Dollars $10.1 billion
SBA is required to report to the President and Congress on achievements by federal agencies and departments against their annual goal to ensure greater accountability. The small business Procurement Scorecard fulfills that requirement by providing an assessment of federal achievement in prime contracting and subcontracting to small businesses by the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies. It also measures progress that departments are making to ensure small business opportunities remain an integral part of their acquisition of goods and services to meet mission objectives.
The fourth annual Scorecard is an assessment tool (1) to measure how well federal agencies reach their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals, (2) provide accurate and transparent contracting data and (3) report agency-specific progress. The prime and subcontracting component goals include goals for small businesses, small businesses owned by women, small disadvantaged businesses, service-disabled veteran owned small businesses, and small businesses in located in HUBZones.
As it does every year, the SBA has closely examined federal procurement reporting and data to ensure the greatest level of transparency possible.
After identifying anomalies in initial reports, the SBA has worked collaboratively – and will continue to work – with agencies across the government to correct as many data issues as possible, and improve the integrity of all small business federal contracting reporting moving forward.
The Recovery Act and small business contracting
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided additional resources to federal agencies in fiscal year 2009, providing additional opportunities for small businesses to win federal contracts. Through early August, small businesses have secured over 30 percent of Recovery Act Contracts. This preliminary data underscores the priority the Administration and the SBA have placed on increasing small businesses access to federal contracts so that they can grow and create jobs.
About the Scorecard
SBA graded 24 agencies on each of the individual prime contracting goals established by Congress and used a new A+ through F letter grade system rather than the previous red, yellow, and green ratings. The new scorecard format was implemented this year to provide greater clarity and transparency on how well each agency is doing in meeting its individual small business prime contracting goals.
Each federal agency has a different small business contracting goal, determined annually in consultation with SBA. SBA ensures that the sum total of all of the goals meets the 23 percent target established by law.
Each agency’s overall grade will show an A+ for agencies that meet or exceed 120 percent of their goals, an A for those between 100 percent and 119 percent, a B for 90 to 99 percent, a C for 80 to 89 percent, a D for 70 to 79 percent and an F for less than 70 percent. An agency’s overall grade was comprised of three quantitative measures: prime contracts (80 percent), subcontracts (10 percent) and its progress plan for meeting goals (10 percent).
The scorecards released Aug. 27, 2010 by SBA, as well as a detailed explanation of the new scorecard methodology, is available online: http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/goals/index.html.
As part of its ongoing efforts to increase access to contracting opportunities for small businesses, the SBA is continuing to work with federal agency procurement staff to strengthen the integrity of contracting data, including providing tools to facilitate public review of data, improvements to systems and training to improve accuracy.
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Release Date: August 27, 2010
Contact: Tiffani Clements (202) 401-0035 Hayley Matz (202) 205-6948
Release Number: 10-48
Internet Address: http://www.sba.gov/news