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.
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.
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.
Happy Spring! It’s been a long, cold winter here in the Midwest. But we are starting to see many signs of spring this week. I just got back from a spring break trip to Gulf Shores and Fort Morgan, Alabama and this picture was taken on the beach there. It was a great time to recharge the batteries so I could get back to staying up to date on federal contracting news.
This week in federal government contracting news saw stories including consolidating a number of multiple award contracts under GSA and cutting spending at both DoD and SBA.
There are many questions facing contractors during this time of change and disruption based on new initiatives from the Trump Administration and the impact on the federal government’s role buying from federal contractors.
One of the biggest questions is what can be done if the government modifies a contract, cancels work, or reschedules the performance of work. In that situation, it’s important to understand both the impacts on the prime contractor and any subcontractors.
Here are some steps to take to deal with this type of situation. Depending on the facts at hand, it might make sense to perform these steps in the order listed. In other situations, it may be helpful to reach out first, get the temperature of the government and subcontractors, and then review the prime contract and subcontract. Changes to how contracts are managed is something that contractors have dealt with in other situations, and we’ve had recommendations on these types of issues in the context of government shutdowns and COVID-19 over the years.
Happy Friday. Hope everyone had a great week. We wanted to share an announcement this week that WIFCON.com is back. Posted from the website: “Wifcon.com was created by Robert (Bob) Antonio 26 years ago. Operated and maintained solely by him and at his own expense, the website has provided a free, reliable, and invaluable source of information and means of communication and commentary to the acquisition community, both public and private for 26 years. Sadly, Bob died on November 24, 2024, after a brief illness, leaving no operational successor.” Now, “a small group of volunteers, has purchased the site from his heirs and will continue to provide the same free service under the same name, Wifcon.com.”
We truly appreciated Bob’s commitment to the GovCon community. He created a great resource for us here at SmallGovCon and provided very helpful information that we used weekly in our Week in Review blogs. Thank you, Bob, for your dedicated service, and for the new operators of this very helpful site. Please visit the website at WIFCON.com.
And now this week in federal government contracting news, check out stories about new changes to contracting at various agencies including possibly having GSA do more of the contracting for other agencies, as well as changes to DoD workforce and regulations.
Hello, blog readers and happy Friday. Can you believe it’s already March? In just a few short weeks, spring will (finally) be here! Hooray! With all the snow we had, we are definitely looking forward to warmer temperatures and to getting outside more.
We hope that you’re gearing up for a nice weekend. But before you do, let’s take a look at the-week that was. In this edition of the Week in Review, articles discussed the continued reshuffling and closing of government agencies and offices and the importance of GSA.
