Large federal businesses preying on weaknesses in the Small Business Administration's contracting programs to win work intended for small companies could face more robust requirements intended to aid small businesses.
For the sixth year in a row, the federal government failed to meet its goal of awarding 23 percent of all federal prime contracts to small businesses, according to House Democrats.
A familiar regulation of the Small Business Administration allows a contractor that qualified as a small business at the time it won a contract to be considered small for the life of the contract. More than three years after SBA proposed to amend it, that regulation remains in force.
Assertions by the Small Business Administration's former adminstrator that the government surpassed its congressionally mandated goal of awarding 23 percent of federal prime contracts to small companies have come under sharp attack from congressional leaders, the SBA's inspector general and Government Accountability Office.
The Homeland Security Department anticipates announcing in July the winners of FirstSource, a $3 billion small-business IT contract to help the department integrate and standardize its IT systems and tools.
If RS Information Systems Inc.'s federal contracts were a remake of the movie "A Star Is Born," 1 Source Consulting Inc. would play the title role: the character who starts out in a supporting part but quickly is tapped to headline the show.
As the Veteran's Affairs Department undergoes a major process and systems transformation, the agency will buy up to $365 million worth of Microsoft software and services from MicroTech LLC.
The Small Business Administration is proposing to implement a new regulation aimed at providing more contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses.
Guident Technologies Inc. won a five-year, $4.9 million task order from the Energy Department's Los Alamos Laboratory to deliver service support for Oracle solutions.
Lynwood Owens is deep in discussions with a woman-owned 8(a) business that for the past seven years has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The contract is coming up for recompete at year's end, and Owens, a program manager at General Dynamics Network Systems, sees a change in how the smaller company handles the contract: It would become the prime contractor to USAID, and the General Dynamics unit would be its subcontractor.
The closure of the Veteran's Contracting Office at the Small Business Administration and the planned cancellation of the Veterans Advisory Committee in September have drawn the ire of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
Logistics Applications Inc. finally won a facilities management services contract with the Energy Department, after the company's initial 2005 win of the deal was protested by the National Treasury Employees Union.
The Democrats on the House Small Business Committee proposed reauthorization legislation today that would overhaul the Small Business Administration. The bill would increase the federal government's small-business prime contracting goal from 23 percent to 30 percent.
The second time around might be the charm for Logistics Applications Inc., which has had to wait more than a year to take over its largest contract win ever.
