Yesterday, the new administration issued a new Executive Order (EO) officially requiring a reformation of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and a thorough review of the federal procurement system in general. Along with related EOs, they direct the Office of Federal Public Procurement Policy (OFPP), the FAR Council, and the heads of and “senior acquisition and procurement officials” from our federal agencies to create the “FAR 2.0”–as it has aptly been deemed. And they have 180 days to do it.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Federal Government Contracting
SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 7-11, 2025
Happy Friday! We hope you had a great week. This week in federal government contracting: GSA has announced a fresh round of OASIS Plus unrestricted awardees, expanding opportunities for vendors in the professional services space, and OMB also released memos signaling new AI policy goals. You can read more about this and other federal government contracting news in the articles below. Have a great weekend!
Continue readingSmallGovCon Week in Review: March 31- April 4, 2025
Happy April! We are having our typical Midwest spring weather here, where one day it is warm and sunny and the next day it is cold and rainy. We have to keep every type of jacket at the ready because one never knows what to expect. We hope you have had a great week and are looking forward to the weekend.
This week in federal government contracting included stories dealing with the remaking of the federal workforce, increased workload for federal judges, and a more prominent role for GSA.
Continue readingExecutive Order: Consolidation of Procurement
The Trump administration has issued an executive order entitled Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement. This order, or Consolidation EO, has some guidelines for how procurement will be reorganized under the Trump administration, so it’s useful to go through some of the key language. One item in particular is a keen focus on category management by using GSA for various types of procurement. While it’s been a driving force of procurement reform over the years, this order puts category management into even sharper focus.
Continue readingSmallGovCon Week in Review: March 24-28, 2025
Hello! It’s Friday and time for another week in review. This time of year brings both the ripping up of March Madness brackets and the opening day of baseball–hope springs eternal! And for non-sports ball folks, we hope that spring is bringing all of our readers both renewed energy and productivity.
This week saw a number of interesting stories, including proposed consolidating of procurement with GSA and changes to GSA schedules, along with updates on termination of some contracts.
Continue readingOHA Says: Show me the Money! (in Ostensible Subcontracting Review)
Size and status protests, which are reviewed by the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA), are far less common than GAO protests which protest an evaluation aspect of a solicitation or award. But when they are used they can be a powerful tool to keep contracting dollars intended for small businesses to stay with small businesses. In the case of Winergy, LLC, OHA takes a look at an award intended for SDVOSBs, to determine if the awardee is in compliance with the ostensible subcontractor rule or if it is subcontracting out the primary and vital parts of the contract. The lesson? If you want to keep an award, be sure that you, or a similarly situated subcontractor, will be performing the primary and vital parts of the contract and that you can support that assertion with evidence.
Continue readingWebinar Event! Top 21 Legal Mistakes in Federal Government Contracting, April 9, 2025, 11:00-12:00pm CDT
Federal contracting rules and laws are complicated, and the rules aren’t always intuitive. Many contractors make legal mistakes routinely, involving everything from completing SAM profiles to calculating small business size to communicating with government contracting officers. Federal government contracts attorneys, Shane McCall & Annie Birney of Koprince McCall Pottroff, will discuss the top 21 most common legal mistakes that contractors make time and time again. You will learn what these common mistakes are and how to avoid them. Please join us for this free webinar hosted by our friends at The Catalyst Center for Business & Entrepreneurship. Please Register here.