Recently, the GAO issued a report discussing the VA’s Veterans First Program, made at the request of several members of Congress. The report focused on addressing ongoing implementation challenges regarding compliance with the Rule of Two following the Kingdomware decision.
One of the key challenges facing the VA is ensuring that SDVOSBs comply with the limitations on subcontracting. According to the GAO, the VA’s oversight needs improvement.
In last week’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week In Review, we referenced a FAR update that has important ramifications for prospective small business government contractors. This rule is potentially important enough that we figured it deserved its own stand-alone SmallGovCon post.
So what’s so important about this new rule? In a nutshell, it clarifies that offerors must be registered in SAM at the time of bid submission to be considered for an award.
The Department of Defense has issued a class deviation raising the micro-purchase threshold to $10,000, effective immediately.
The increase implements Section 821 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law last month.
When an incumbent contractor’s general manager got sick and had to quit, the contractor promptly found a replacement, which the agency approved. But there was still one problem: the incumbent had already proposed to use the same general manager for the next contract.
According to GAO, the agency was right to eliminate the contractor from the competition, even though the agency knew that the contractor had a new general manager and had, in fact, approved the replacement.
The SBA plans to issue a proposed rule consolidating the All Small Mentor-Protégé Program and the 8(a) Mentor-Protégé Program.
According to a recent SBA publication in the Federal Register, the SBA has had a change of heart about whether it is necessary to run two similar mentor-protégé programs–one for everybody, and another only for 8(a) firms.
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.
The SBA has rejected several recommendations for major changes in how the SBA calculates small business size status.
In commentary published in the Federal Register last week, the SBA rejected (among other things) recommendations that it use average employee count to evaluate the sizes of construction firms and that other firms’ sizes be measured by profits or net worth instead of average annual receipts.