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DoD must work harder to include small business contractors, audit says

June 6, 2018 By Andrew Smith

An audit of two Army Contracting Command centers in Redstone, Alabama and Warren, Michigan, revealed The Department of Defense (DoD) must increase its efforts in order to meet small business subcontracting goals.

The DoD Inspector General Audit was carried out in three different branches. One audit was performed on the Army, and two each on the Marine Corps and the Air Force. According to the audit, small businesses may have lost opportunities because protocols were not followed which could have encouraged more small businesses to be part of the federal marketplace.

Small businesses have been specifically included in the federal contract bidding process to both support and encourage growth in communities across the country. Head of the House Small Business Committee U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) announced in Nov. 2017 his desire to raise the federal government’s contracting goal for small businesses to 25 percent, a two percent increase from the current 23 percent target for contracts to be awarded to small businesses today.

Keep reading this article at: https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/05/defense-contracts-for-small-businesses.html

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: Army, audit, DoD, House Small Business Committee, IG, small business, small business goals, subcontracting, subcontracting goals

New legislation looks to revitalize lagging HUBZone program, underdeveloped communities

September 20, 2017 By Andrew Smith

Lawmakers have been searching for answers to bolster a small business program designed to focus on economically disadvantaged communities, and vendors are saying their most recent effort goes a long way toward solving some of its biggest problems.

The Small Business Administration’s Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program incentivizes small businesses to base their headquarters in and hire employees from communities with high unemployment and low median incomes. The government has never reached its goal of awarding 3 percent of its contracts to HUBZone-certified businesses. SBA reports it came closest within the last decade in 2009 with 2.81 percent, but that number has steadily dropped to a low of 1.67 percent in 2016.

“Program participation dropped immensely after the release of the 2010 Census data,” said House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) during a Sept. 13 hearing on the HUBZone Unification and Business Stability Act of 2017. “Nearly 90 percent of HUBZones do not have a single certified firm.”

One of the main reasons behind this is the way HUBZone qualification data is calculated. The income and unemployment numbers used to designate HUBZones are updated annually, causing the zones to shift on a yearly basis. This makes it difficult for businesses seeking HUBZone certification to conduct long-term planning in order to locate their headquarters and hire employees in such a way that will maintain compliance.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/congress/2017/09/new-legislation-looks-to-revitalize-lagging-sba-hubzone-program-underdeveloped-communities/

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: certification, House Small Business Committee, HUBZone, SBA, small business

Is ‘category management’ excluding small federal contractors?

April 21, 2016 By Andrew Smith

Category Management Impact 04.05.2016While the White House and the General Services Administration (GSA) have made category management a pillar of their attempts to streamline federal acquisition, two members of the House Small Business Committee worry the more means small businesses will be squeezed out of competition for federal contracts.

The White House and the federal CIO’s office have issued a series of polices in recent months calling for the elimination of what they term redundant or duplicative contracts, and moving agencies onto governmentwide contracts.

But according to a letter from Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), the move within GSA spells doom for small businesses.

Keep reading this article at: http://publicspendforum.net/category-management-small-contractors/

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: category management, GSA, House Small Business Committee, small business

In Congressional testimony, PTAC association says better compliance with subcontracting requirements is needed

March 8, 2016 By Andrew Smith

aptac 2Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC) President Chuck Spence appeared before the U.S. House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Contracting and the Workforce last week, testifying as part of the Hearing, “Hotline Truths: Issues Raised by Recent Audits of Defense Contracting.” Spence is Deputy Director of the Utah Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC).

The hearing focused on Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) reports that two key Marine Corps commands failed to meet their legally-mandated requirements for small business subcontracting plans, as part of the subcommittees efforts to help small firms better compete for contracts with DoD, providing value to the taxpayer and quality to the warfighter.

“The Small Business Act contains important protections for small companies that provide services to our men and women in uniform,” said Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hanna (R-NY). “Existing law ensures that we have a vibrant community of small contractors ready to provide innovative and cost effective solutions. However, if the statutory provisions of the Small Business Act are not observed, those benefits are lost.”

“The Marine Corps’ documented failure to comply with statutory requirements concerning the approval and oversight of small business subcontracting plans has resulted in significant harm to the small business community. Continued failure to provide mandatory oversight of small business subcontracting plans has real consequences,” Hanna added.

In his testimony, Spence confirmed that such oversight failures present a real problem. “We are not surprised by the OIG findings in response to Defense Hotline allegations. On the contrary, we suspect that the problems identified – lack of adequate policies for requiring subcontracting plan submissions and reports, insufficient training for contracting officials regarding their responsibilities for evaluating and administering subcontracting plans, and failure to monitor compliance with subcontracting plans – are common across all federal agencies, because the root causes are not unique.” He cited an unrealistic overreliance on contracting officers with insufficient resources to effectively enforce subcontracting compliance, as well as an inadequate disincentives for prime contractors, noting that no firm has been penalized for failure to comply in many years.

However, Spence went on to commend the House Small Business Committee for their efforts to tackle the problems, stating “We applaud Chairman Chabot, Ranking Member Velázquez, and the House Small Business Committee for the ambitious effort to address these issues through HR. 4341, The Defending America’s Small Contractors Act of 2016. The bill’s comprehensive approach to clarifying the language and definitions of contracting provisions in the Small Business Act – as well as promoting greater transparency in goaling and accountability in execution – is much needed.”

Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) are deeply engaged with subcontracting issues, helping small businesses identify subcontracting opportunities, connect with and market to prime contractors, and generally become responsible, “procurement ready” subcontractors, as well as assisting large prime contractors with developing subcontracting plans and locating small business vendors that can meet their requirements. In 2014, PTACs helped over 57,000 small businesses win government contracts and subcontracts valued at over $12 billion.  APTAC is the professional organization of the 98 PTACs nationwide.

Click here to view a recording of the hearing.

Source: http://www.aptac-us.org/news/aptac-president-chuck-spence-testifies-subcontracting-issues/ 

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: APTAC, DoD, House Small Business Committee, Marine Corps, PTAC, small business, Small Business Act, small business goals, subcontracting, subcontracting goals, subcontracting plan

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