Author Archives: SmallGovConContributor

SmallGovCon Week In Review March 11 – March 15, 2019

Posted on by

Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re a college basketball fan (who isn’t?), this is one of the best times of the year. Things stay pretty interesting around our office in March and April, between our assortment of KU, Duke, and North Carolina fans. We hope you enjoy the games this weekend!

Before tipoff, let’s rundown the latest government contracting news. In this week’s edition of the Week In Review, we’ll discuss DoD’s ongoing cloud computing legal battle, GAO’s report on health and safety of defense contractors’ employees, the government’s end-of-year buying spree, and more government contractors behaving badly.

Have a great weekend!

Continue reading →

5 Things You Should Know: The Nonmanufacturer Rule

Posted on by

Editor’s note: For more information, check out our updated post on the nonmanufacturer rule.

To qualify as a small business under most set-aside or sole source contracts seeking manufactured products or supplies, SBA’s regulations require an offeror to be the item’s manufacturer or, alternatively, comply with the nonmanufacturer rule.

In a prior post, we discussed 5 Things You Should Know about being the item’s manufacturer; in this post, we’ll discuss qualifying under the nonmanufacturer rule.

Read more

SmallGovCon Week In Review: March 4 – March 8, 2019

Posted on by

Happy Friday, everyone! If there’s a better way to get the weekend started than the SmallGovCon Week In Review, we haven’t yet found it.

In this week’s edition, we’ll take a closer look at (never-ending) efforts to streamline the acquisition process, defense contractors that are putting workers in danger, projected #GovCon trends for 2019, proposed changes to SDVOSB and WOSB sole-source limits, and the FBI’s current investigation into the JEDI cloud procurement.

Have a great weekend!

Continue reading →

GAO: Agencies Can’t Blindly Rely on Adjectival Ratings to Make Award Decisions

Posted on by

In evaluating proposals, an agency will sometimes use “adjectival ratings” (e.g., Excellent, Good, Acceptable) to describe its assessment of a proposal or portions of a proposal. But, importantly, an agency cannot evade its responsibility to reasonably evaluate proposals–based on the articulated evaluation criteria–by deferring solely to the assigned adjectival ratings.

In other words, if the agency doesn’t perform a true qualitative assessment, but instead relies on mere labels to make its ultimate award decision, GAO will likely slap the agency’s hand.

Continue reading →

Five Things You Should Know: Registering in SAM.gov

Posted on by

Editor’s note: For more information, check out our updated post on registering in SAM.gov.

Everyone involved with government contracting knows, or should know, a little bit about registration in SAM.gov. Registration is now required for ALL federal contractors at the time they submit bids.

This blog post provides you with 5 things you should know about registering in SAM.gov.

Continue reading →

SmallGovCon Week In Review February 25 – March 1, 2019

Posted on by

Holy smokes, can you believe it’s already March? In just a few short weeks, spring will (finally) be here and Q1 will be at an end.

We hope that you’re gearing up for a nice weekend. But before you punch out, let’s take a look at the-week-that-was. In this edition of the Week In Review, we’ll try to put a maligned website out of its misery, look at increasing cybersecurity requirements, and explore a new Pentagon contract.

Have a great weekend!

Continue reading →

Agencies Must Not Delay Evaluating the Merits of Protests, Says GAO

Posted on by

It is decently well-established that GAO will recommend protesters be reimbursed for protest related costs when an agency unduly delays in taking prompt corrective action. In a recent GAO decision, however, the Navy argued the question of undue delay should be evaluated from the time the Navy fully understood the extent of its error, not the initiation of the protest.

GAO was not convinced.

Continue reading →