It’s that time of year again. School’s ending for the summer and kids are coming home (some sheepishly) with their report cards. And with the close of Fiscal Year 2017, the federal government has also been given its report card.
Like last year, the FY 2017 report card reveals a mixed bag. Though the SBA gave the federal government another “A,” the bottom-line numbers reveal a troubling trend for small business government contractors.
As we head into the second half of May, it is time for graduation parties and summer fun. But before we enjoy the weekend, it’s Friday and time for the SmallGovCon Week in Review.
In this week’s edition, we highlight GAO giving contractors a second chance to make it into the OASIS unrestricted pool; an audit showing that DOD isn’t giving small businesses enough opportunity; DSS’ plans for a new methodology to vet security of contractor facilities; and more.
When a bidder submits a bid under a sealed bid procurement, it is responsible for ensuring that the bid is timely submitted. But what happens if a bidder wants to revise a bid that’s already been submitted?
As a recent GAO case shows, even a revised bid must be timely submitted in order for it to be considered. If a bidder tries to revise its bid too late in the process, it might end up costing itself the award.
For all the mothers out there, happy Mother’s Day! We hope you have a great, relaxing weekend. But first, it’s Friday, and time for the SmallGovCon Week in Review.
In this week’s edition, we’ll discuss an important update to the VA’s CVE application process. We’ll also update you on the on-going saga regarding the Department of Education’s student loan servicing contracts and, as is our (unfortunate) custom, highlight some of the week’s examples of government contractors behaving badly.
Enjoy!
SBA’s regulations say that in order to qualify as a small business under a set-aside or sole-source contract seeking manufactured products or supply items, an offeror ordinarily must either be the manufacturer of the end item or qualify under the nonmanufacturer rule.
This post will discuss five things your small business should know about qualifying as a manufacturer under the SBA’s rules; in a future post, we’ll walk through the nonmanufacturer rule.
Let’s get to it: here are 5 Things You Should Know about the SBA’s definition of manufacturer.
An agency cannot buy “Open Market” items from a Federal Supply Schedule vendor when the same items are readily available under another vendor’s FSS contract–even if the vendor selling Open Market items offers them as a discounted bundle and the FSS vendor does not.
In a recent decision, GAO held that it was improper for an agency to buy bundled software packages as Open Market items when another vendor sold the same licenses on its FSS contract as four separate items.
Because of a recent cyber attack on the System for Award Management, the Federal Service Desk is requiring new contractors to submit a signed notarized letter in order to be registered. Later this month, existing registrants seeking to update or renew profiles will have to do the same.
This move comes after the General Services Administration acknowledged on March 22 that the inspector general is looking into a hack of the SAM.gov database, in which the hackers changed the banking information for “a limited number” of contractors.