SmallGovCon Week in Review: November 5-9, 2018

This week, Lawrence got its first taste of cold and snow for the season. I have to say, it was not a welcomed arrival. Hopefully it’s warmer in your neck of the woods.

Let’s all warm our hearts with this week’s edition of SmallGovCon Week In Review. In today’s WIR, we’ll look at a joint VA/SBA partnership to benefit SDVOSBs, DoD’s effort to use its expanded “middle tier” contracting vehicles, and more government contractors behaving badly.

Have a great weekend!

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SBA OHA: Contracting Officer Can’t Extend Size Appeal Deadline

When you hear “15 days,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps, you pay your employees every 15 days. Maybe your birthday or favorite holiday happens to be in 15 days. Or if you’re like me, you might think that 15 days is two days fewer than Thirteen Days, a great movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Whatever your brain conjures up, don’t forget this: 15 days is the time limit to appeal an SBA size determination. Period. And nothing the contracting officer says can change it.

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SBA Proposes Big Changes to the HUBZone Program (Continued)

Big changes could be coming to the HUBZone program. On October 31, the SBA published a proposed rule that, if adopted, would bring clarity to the HUBZone regulations. Yesterday, we posted about proposed changes to the HUBZone certification, compliance, and protest processes.

In this post, we wanted to bring you up to speed on some of the more substantive revisions to the way HUBZone employees are defined and counted under the proposed rule.

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GAO Fends Off ‘Killer Tomato’ Protest

I always knew my legal career would some day overlap with my love of terrible movies, before-they-were-stars trivia, and naval warfare. Today is that day.

When I saw that GAO had dismissed a “killer tomato” protest, several things came to mind. First, I thought, wait, are they talking about “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes“? Then I though, wait, wasn’t George Clooney in that—and didn’t he have a terrible 80’s mullet? Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me. I clicked.

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HUBZone Program: SBA’s Proposed Rule Clears Up Some Common Misconceptions

Last week, the SBA released a proposal to overhaul the HUBZone Program.  The proposed rule will make major changes to almost all aspects of the HUBZone Program, and my colleagues are covering those changes in a series of two posts on SmallGovCon.

But while the proposed HUBZone Program rule changes will garner most of the headlines, the SBA also has used the proposed rule as an opportunity to clear up a few very common HUBZone Program misconceptions–such as the notion that so-called “jobsite employees” don’t count toward the 35% HUBZone residency requirement.

Here are three of the most important clarifications SBA offered in the proposed HUBZone rule.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: October 29-November 2, 2018

The big government contracting news of the week was certainly the SBA’s proposed changes to the HUBZone regulations. But that wasn’t the only news. So let’s recap in this week’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week In Review!

Below, we’ll look at the DOD’s plan to audit registered SDVOSBs, an update on the CloudSmart strategy, and more.

Have a great weekend (and enjoy that leftover Halloween candy)!

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