On Tuesday, May 22, Ken Dodds, Acting Deputy Associate Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development hosted a conference call to discuss the results of the 2017 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard.
The annual Scorecard is an assessment tool that measures how well federal agencies reach their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals and reports agency-specific progress. The prime and subcontracting component goals include goals for small businesses, small businesses owned by women (WOSBs), small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs), service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), and small businesses located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones).
Every fiscal year, the SBA works with each agency to set their prime and subcontracting goals and their grades are based on the agreed upon goals. Each federal agency has a different small business prime contracting goal. The SBA ensures that the sum total of all of the goals exceeds the 23 percent target established by law.
Every year, the federal government spends over $400 billion dollars on goods and services, making it the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development is charged with making sure that the federal government spends at least 23% of its contract dollars with small businesses annually.
SBA’s announcement notes that the federal government exceeded its small business contracting goal for the 5th consecutive year, awarding 23.88 percent in prime contract dollars to small businesses totaling $105 billion, an increase of $5 billion, to earn an “A” on SBA’s Scorecard. This marks the first time ever small businesses received more than $100 billion in prime contracts, a very remarkable feat in an otherwise difficult contracting climate. The federal government also awarded almost $75 billion in subcontracting dollars to small businesses. The prime and subcontracting dollars awarded to small businesses in FY17 amount to nearly one million jobs that are supported each year through federal contracting and help to build communities and fuel the nation’s economy.
