Earlier this month, GAO produced an over 50-page report, presenting a discussion on options for increasing business opportunities for “mid-sized” businesses. It can be tough to go from being a small business to competing with all large businesses, so GAO took a look at these small-ish large businesses.
We know SmallGovCon readers are busy, so we’ll provide the CliffNotes version.
Continue readingUnder some federal government contracts, the contractor is required to pay its workers a wage dictated by a wage determination issued by DOL. But what if, during contract performance, DOL raises the applicable wages? Under the FAR, contractors can recover their increased costs.
Naturally, however, contractors have to prove them.
Continue readingOn September 18, 2019, SBA’s Office of Inspector General released an Audit Report summarizing a recent audit of SBA’s Suspension and Debarment Process. The purpose of the audit was to determine whether SBA “had sufficient controls in place to prevent suspended or debarred entities from receiving federal contracts through SBA’s preference contracting programs and small business loans.”
Through its investigation, OIG discovered SBA lent and awarded millions of dollars to businesses otherwise ineligible to receive these funds under SBA’s suspension and debarment guidelines. While SBA disagreed with some of OIG’s findings, SBA did agree to take some steps to address OIG’s findings and recommendations.
Continue readingInternal Government Cost Estimates (IGCEs) are frequently used to gauge the reasonableness of contractor prices during proposal evaluation. But can these internal estimates also impact other evaluation factors? GAO was recently asked to resolve this question in the context of past performance evaluations, and the answer was essentially “you sure can!”
Alright, GAO wasn’t that enthusiastic, but it did condone the use of IGCEs when evaluating past performance.
Continue readingIn 2016, SBA established the All Small Mentor-Protégé Program, or ASMPP, enabling mentors of any size to provide business development assistance to small protégé businesses to enhance the protégé’s ability to compete for federal contracts. Since then, the ASMPP has served as a powerful tool for many businesses and, as of August 1, there were 885 active mentor-protégé agreements.
Recently, however, the SBA’s Office of the Inspector General released a report highlighting some opportunities to improve the program and recommending SBA take additional steps to ensure compliance with the program’s requirements.
Continue readingAs recently as May, the Department of Veterans Affairs told a nonprofit helping to employ blind workers that it intended to renew its contract. The organization was shocked, therefore, when on July 30, the VA issued a notice of award to a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. To make matters worse, the nonprofit’s GAO protest of the award was promptly dismissed for being untimely.
What the heck happened?
Continue readingEditor’s note: For more information, check out our updated post on Joint Ventures.
In the age of consolidated contracts and increased competition, small business federal contractors are searching for a way to improve their odds of winning the next opportunity. One of the most important tools for doing so is to form a joint venture.
Here are five things you should know about small business joint ventures:
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