The draft 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes a number of provisions that will affect government contractors, especially small business contractors, including the three provisions featured in this post.
Read on for how the 2020 draft NDAA impacts annual small business reporting by the SBA, cybersecurity training for small businesses, and evaluation of past performance to focus on workforce development.
Continue reading…You know what they say about when you assume. Unfortunately, one contractor recently discovered that taking an assumed business name can have serious repercussions for proposal eligibility.
Continue reading…Congress has long had concerns that Department of Defense procurements did not act fast enough to get innovations in the hands of our nation’s warfighters. Section 804 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act addressed this concern by requesting the creation of procurement pathways for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding.
To achieve this aim, a “middle-tier” DOD procurement pathway was created. The roll-out of this middle-tier pathway has been complicated and GAO recently decided to look at why.
Continue reading…Lately, my kids have been asking me to “do the honors” when they ask me to do something. At first, I thought this was a cute and very polite way to ask for something. Then I realized they were going to use it for everything. Will you do the honor of getting me some water? Will you do the honor of starting a show for us? It started to get kind of old and make me feel not so honorable. But their intention was good.
So, with that inspiration, will you do the honor of reading this week’s round-up of government contracting news? Interesting stories abound, including some about new cyber security guidance, the safety records of military construction contractors, and the use of “best-in-class” contracts.
Continue reading…Earning federal contracts is a powerful tool to help small companies grow their business. To help make sure that small businesses have a seat at the table, the Small Business Act sets prime contracting goals for small businesses (along with each socio-economic category). 15 U.S.C. § 644(g). And each year, the SBA issues a scorecard grading the government’s compliance with those goals.
Just a couple days ago, the SBA released its scorecard for the 2018 fiscal year. All told, the scorecard paints a rosy picture of small business contracting.
Let’s take a look.
Continue reading…The draft 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes a dispute process for subcontractors when the prime contractor fails to pay.
Section 831 of the draft bill would amend the Small Business Act to allow subcontractors to report nonpayment to the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.
Continue reading…As you may be aware, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 2500) recently made its way through the House Committee on Armed Services. With some space-centric NAICS codes, such as 517410 (Satellite Communications), seeing a 134%+ increase in small business participants in the last decade, how the U.S. approaches the final frontier should be on the mind of many small business government contractors.
It definitely was on the mind of the Committee on Armed Services.
Continue reading…