Good news for small business looking to break into Department of Defense contracting: the 2017 NDAA establishes a new prototyping pilot program for small businesses and nontraditional defense contractors to develop new and innovative technologies.
The DoD is putting its money where its mouth is: the new pilot program is funded with $250 million from the rapid prototyping fund established by last year’s NDAA.
Coming as welcome news for collaborative R&D, the 2017 NDAA will extend the life of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
The conference version of the bill, which seems likely to be on the President’s desk in short order, contains provisions extending both programs for five years.
The 2017 NDAA is full of important changes that will affect federal contracting going forward. As Steve wrote about earlier this week, some of these changes relate to government contracting programs (like the SDVOSB program). Still others relate to how the government actually procures goods and services.
One of these important changes severely limits the use of lowest-price technically-acceptable (“LPTA”) evaluations in Department of Defense procurements. Following the change, “best value” tradeoffs will be prioritized for DoD acquisitions. This post will briefly examine when LPTA procurements will and won’t be allowed under the 2017 NDAA.
As previously foreshadowed and discussed in depth, October 1, 2016, marked the date in which unsuccessful offerors lost the ability to challenge most task order awards issued by civilian agencies.
Although the GAO remains able to hear protests relating to DoD task orders exceeding $10 million, two recent GAO decisions impose an important limitation: GAO does not have jurisdiction to consider awards issued by DoD under a multiple-award contract operated by a civilian agency.
The SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals will have authority to hear petitions for reconsideration of SBA size standards under a proposed rule recently issued by the SBA.
Once the proposal becomes a final rule, anyone “adversely affected” by a new, revised or modified size standard would have 30 days to ask OHA to review the SBA’s size standard determination.
The government can terminate a contract when the Department of Labor has made a preliminary finding of non-compliance with the Service Contract Act, even if the contractor has not exhausted its remedies fighting or appealing the finding.
The 3-0 (unanimous) decision by the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals in Puget Sound Environmental Corp., ASBCA No. 58828 (July 12, 2016) is troubling because it could result in other contractors losing their contracts based on preliminary DOL findings–perhaps even if those preliminary findings are later overturned.
The SBA has released a sample template mentor-protege agreement, and accompanying application information, for its new “all small” mentor-protege program.
The template calls for the parties to select from up to six categories of assistance that the mentor may provide, and requires the parties to set forth specific details about the nature of the planned assistance, the timeline for providing it, and milestones for measuring success. The application form, in turn, requires the protege to have a written business plan, and will require mentors and proteges to complete an online training module if they apply after November 1, 2016.