If a contracting officer determines that a small business offeror is not qualified to perform under a given solicitation, that typically means the offeror’s proposal will be rejected. But when the rejection deals with responsibility, the offeror may get a second bite at the apple through the SBA’s Certificate of Competency (“COC”) program. Whether this is news to you, or something you simply wish to understand a bit better, let’s take a look at the basics of the SBA’s COC Program, rules, and procedures.
Continue reading…Even Rules have their Limits, Says SBA OHA about the Nonmanufacturer Rule
In a recent size appeal, the SBA OHA made it clear that the nonmanufacturer rule has it limits, and will not apply depending on the dollar value of the acquisition. OHA reminded contractors that the nonmanufacturer rule applies only to acquisitions over the simplified acquisition threshold.
Continue reading…SmallGovCon Week in Review: May 6-10, 2024
Happy Friday and Happy Mother’s Day! Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Did you know that the most phone calls are made in the United States on Mother’s Day? We hope you have a wonderful weekend and please acknowledge all those mothers and mother-figures in your life. Have a nice weekend.
And now in federal government contracting news this week, some of the interesting updates included GAO’s look at waste in federal programs (they found some) as well as a push to lift budget caps on the DoD.
Continue reading…Apparent Conflict: Appearance of Impropriety Enough to Exclude a Contractor from Federal Contract
When a government employee moves from a federal agency to a private contractor, this sort of revolving door can lead to concerns that contractor hiring the ex-agency employee is getting special treatment. To avoid this concern, the ex-agency will sometimes bar the contractor from competing. In a recent case, the Navy did just that and a court had to review if the Navy made a reasonable decision.
Continue reading…SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 29-May 3, 2024
Happy Friday! And just like that, it’s May! Hope you had a wonderful week and have some fun plans this weekend. This week in federal government contracting news included updates about small business federal contracting dollars (see our blog here) as well as new contracting bills coming out of Congress.
Continue reading…SBA Scorecard: Largest Small Business Federal Contracting Year, Some Goals Missed
It’s that time of year again! The time of year that all federal government contractors wait for with bated breath to see how well agencies performed in relation to their small business subcontracting goals (or at least how well the metrics show them to be doing). Time for the SBA’s Annual Scorecard. Ok, so maybe it’s not quite that hyped up. But it is informative, nonetheless. And for 2023, it looks like things are looking up with every category making gains from the previous year. Once again, government-wide performance earned an overall score of an “A” by achieving 109.13% of its goal coming in with a whopping $178.6 billion spent with small business contractors.
Continue reading…Clearing Things Up? A Quick Look at the Proposed Plain Language in Contracting Act
In 2010, Congress passed the “Plain Writing Act,” which essentially requires that federal agency communications to the public must be in language that “the public can understand and use” and is “clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience.” In other words, the idea was that agencies should stop using so much jargon and legalese. However, this arguably didn’t apply to contract opportunity notices. Congress is now looking at making sure that omission changes with the proposed “Plain Language in Contracting” Act, at least with regards to small business set-asides. We explore this more in depth in this post.
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