Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

What federal contractors should know about small business subcontracting plans

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Every year, the U.S. federal government establishes goals for the awards of prime contracts and subcontracts to small business concerns.  While agencies are responsible for achieving these goals by awarding prime contracts to small businesses, contractors that are “other than small” are obliged to ensure that the small business subcontracting goals are met.  Contractors that compete for a contract worth $750,000 or more ($1.5 million for construction contracts) must submit a small business subcontracting plan that specifies how a contractor will attract small businesses and will ensure that such businesses have a maximum practicable opportunity to subcontract.  FAR 19.702.  In the plan, contractors must indicate separate dollar and percentage goals for small businesses, provide a list of services and supplies to be subcontracted, and describe methods for securing small business subcontracts.  FAR 19.704.

Continue reading at:  Morrison Foerster

Podcast: The state of small business contracting

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This week Ken Dodds, government contracting industry expert at Live Oak Bank, and David Black, partner and co-chair of Holland & Knight’s Government Contracts Group, joined The Federal News Network’s Off the Shelf  podcast for a wide ranging discussion on the state of federal small business contracting.

Dodds and Black took a look at the government’s performance drivers in meeting small business prime contract goals.

They also provided key insights on the state of the federal small business market what small businesses need to know about category management, Best-In-Class contracts, and interagency contracting.

Dodds and Black also shared insights on key regulatory and oversight trends for small business subcontracting plans and what it means for both small and large businesses, and took a look at trends in mergers and acquisitions and the growing criticality of supply chain risk management and what it all means for the federal market.

Listen to the Podcast at:  Federal News Network

Credit for lower-tier subcontracts toward small business subcontracting goals

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It has been a long time coming, but it appears that the government will (finally) amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to align with prior changes by the Small Business Administration (SBA) concerning credit for lower-tier small business subcontracting.

The propose rule addresses changes to FAR 19.704 and 52.219-9 to marry the regulation up with SBA’s amendments.

We first covered this issue back in 2016 when SBA issued a final rule amending the small business subcontracting plan regulations.  SBA’s amendment allows large prime contractors on federal jobs to receive credit for lower-tier subcontracting awards to small businesses and other socio-economically disadvantaged firms.  That is, rather than limit credit to first-tier subcontracts, prime contracts may count the awards their first-tier subcontractors make to small businesses towards their subcontracting goals.

Continue reading at:  Fox Rothschild LLP

Small business advocate wins $475,000 in legal fees after 4-year fight with federal government

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After four years and expenses of more than $700,000, a California-based small business advocate on Thursday won an agreement from the Justice and Defense departments to pay his legal fees for litigation forcing the government to release confidential contracting data.

Lloyd Chapman, the outspoken founder of the Petaluma-based American Small Business League, declared victory in what he called an “historic” move by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to require the government to pay Chapman $475,000.

Neither Justice nor the Pentagon would comment on the case to Government Executive, but Chapman’s award was confirmed by his Washington attorney, Jon Cuneo of Cuneo, Gilbert & Laduca.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/08/small-business-advocate-wins-475k-legal-fees-after-4-year-fight-government/150280/

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

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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

Army told to improve monitoring of small business subcontracts

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Staff at two Army Contracting Command locations sometimes neglected to assure that contractors gave appropriate subcontracts to small businesses, the Pentagon watchdog found.

Though most of the officials located at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and Army Contracting Command in Warren, Michigan, were given a clean bill of health, officials working on 23 contracts valued at $918 million “did not ensure that prime contractors provided small businesses with adequate subcontracting opportunities,” the Defense Department inspector general said in a report dated March 19.

The review of 80 Army contracts completed in fiscal 2015-2016 found that prime contractors provided adequate subcontracting opportunities for 27 contracts valued at $694 million.

But a subset worth $331 million were signed without a subcontracting plan or a contracting officer’s determination that no subcontracting possibilities existed.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/03/army-told-improve-monitoring-small-business-subcontracts/146931/

GSA holding small business networking session Feb. 8th in Savannah

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The General Services Administration’s Office of Small Business Utilization and Hoar Construction LLC are holding a networking session for small businesses on Feb. 8, 2018 in Savannah, Georgia.

Background

On Sept. 28, 2017, GSA awarded a contract in the amount of $22,819,862 to Hoar Construction of Birmingham, Alabama to design and build the new Tomochichi Courthouse Annex in Savannah.  Since Hoar is not a small businesses, the firm is required to develop an acceptable small business subcontracting plan in accordance with FAR 19.7.  The event being planned on Feb. 8th is designed to facilitate small business participation in the project.

The scope of design/build contract includes: design/construction documents and construction work, consisting of all labor, equipment, and materials for a complete build-out.  The project includes space for one bankruptcy courtroom and chambers, the bankruptcy clerk, and space for the U.S. Probation Office.  The total space requirement is approximately 35,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of parking for 25 cars,  for a total of 46,000 gross square feet, available for personnel, furnishings and equipment, with occupancy planned for the year 2020.  The newly constructed Courthouse Annex will be located on GSA-owned property, on a site between Barnard Street, West Your Street, Whitaker Street, and West State Street in Savannah.

Networking Event

Prospective attendees at the small business networking event are to register their company with the GSA Contacting Officer listed below via email.  Due to space availability, the GSA asks that no more than two (2) persons per firm be represented.  Call-in reservations will not be accepted.  The networking session is intended to review the scope of the project, review the project site, and conduct a GSA Small Business Networking forum among attendees.

Contact information: Swindale Rhodes, Contracting Officer, Email: swindale.rhodes@gsa.gov

Date and Time: February 8, 2018, 1:30 pm

Location of Event: 124 Barnard Street, J.G. Lowe “B” Building, 3rd Floor, Savannah, GA 31401

Small business activist wins interim victory against Pentagon, Sikorsky

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For four years, the small but vocal American Small Business League has argued that large federal contractors mislead agencies and the public by overstating their use of small businesses as subcontractors to meet statutory goals.

In U.S. District Court in San Francisco last Friday, attorneys for the advocacy group led by Lloyd Chapman and based in Petaluma, Calif., successfully pried out the previously non-public names of suppliers and other subcontractors used by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.

The helicopter maker had joined with the Defense and Justice departments in seeking to withhold such information as proprietary when submitted to the Pentagon under its 27-year-old Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program, designed to measure corporate potential for increasing small business opportunities in subcontracting.

Small business booster Chapman has long challenged the Pentagon’s program as nonproductive and oriented mostly toward obfuscating the degree to which large contractors win defense business intended for smaller ones.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2017/11/small-business-activist-wins-interim-victory-against-pentagon-sikorsky/142611 

3 ways to make the most of your subcontract

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Are two businesses better than one?

For many small businesses, teaming with a larger and more-established government contractor as a subcontractor may be a great way to gain experience and build a reputation with government agencies.

Despite the many advantages of teaming, subcontractors can sometimes find themselves out in the cold if they don’t take the proper steps to assure inclusion once the contract is awarded.  In fact, according to the American Express Trends in Federal Contracting for Small Businesses report, 31 percent of small business government contractors reported that they participated on a winning bid as a subcontractor, but the prime contractor never used them during the fulfillment of that contract.

No need to be pessimistic!  Many small businesses (including my own) have fruitful experiences teaming up as a subcontractor.  Here are three ways to help subcontractors receive their share of a winning bid and put themselves on the path to more work.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/opinions/2017/10/23/3-ways-to-make-the-most-of-your-subcontract-commentary/

Accuracy of federal small business contracting data challenged

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Published on Forbes.com on June 5th, an article entitled, “Trump Administration Fails At Creating Jobs By Missing Small Business Contract Targets,” contends that the Small Business Administration (SBA) significantly inflates government small business data by including billions in federal contracts to Fortune 500 firms in the volume of contracts the SBA claimed were awarded to small businesses.

The author of the article, Professor Charles Tiefer, is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on government contracting, federal contracting law and legislation. He is a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.  Professor Tiefer has written several legal opinions that challenge the accuracy of small business contracting data released by the SBA.

The SBA released their report for fiscal year 2016 claiming small businesses received $99.96 billion in federal contracts and 24.34 percent of all federal contracts in 2016.

In his article, Professor Tiefer states, “Of the $99.96 billion the SBA claimed went to small businesses, it appears no more than 50% of that number went to firms that currently legally qualify as small businesses. In reality, legitimate small businesses may well have received no more than $50 billion in federal contracts and subcontracts in FY 2016. That would come out to just mid-single digit percentages of the full level of federal acquisitions for FY 2016, a far cry from the 24.34 percent claimed by the SBA.”

Tiefer also accuses the SBA of excluding the majority of federal acquisitions from their calculations in claiming small businesses received 24.34 percent of all federal contracts. He states, “First, the SBA is counting federal acquisitions for FY 2016 at around $410 billion. That is an artificial and unconvincing low figure. I have written in the past that the actual figure is more than double that.”

Professor Tiefer served as solicitor and deputy general counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives for 11 years. He also served as Commissioner on the Congressionally chartered, federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2008-2011.

Source: http://www.einnews.com/pr_news/388077084/professor-charles-tiefer-challenges-accuracy-of-government-small-business-data

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