When a contractor believes an agency assigned the wrong North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code to a solicitation, it can file an appeal with the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA). However, for OHA to correct the NAICS code, the contractor must show the contracting officer’s assignment was clearly erroneous. As we’ve discussed, counting just those NAICS code appeals decided on the merits, about 45% were granted, per a GAO report.
Continue reading…SBA Issues Final Rule to Streamline WOSB Program Rules
In June, we reported on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that applied to the SBA’s Woman-Owned Small Business/Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) regulations. These proposed rules were intended to take the WOSB regulations and make them more consistent with the other types of set-aside programs offered by the SBA. Now, following the required period for comments from the general public, the SBA has published its Final Rule which will be effective January 3, 2025. Read ahead to find out more!
Continue reading…SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 2-6, 2024
Happy December! How’s the holiday shopping going so far? It seems the shopping time is even shorter than ever with Thanksgiving being so late this year. Oh boy! And the calendar is busy with so many events happening in December, it’s difficult to choose. This Saturday is the 24th annual Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade here in Lawrence, Kansas, featuring horse drawn buggies. We also hope you have some fun holiday plans this weekend and try not to stress about that shopping list.
But the federal contracting world was busy as well and has not quite settled down for its slumber. This week in federal government contracting news saw new WOSB rules, claim appeal stats from the CBCA annual report, and updates from the new administration.
Continue reading…Govology Webinar: December 12, 2024 – The 2024 Government Contracting Year-End Review
Please join Nicole Pottroff and me for this informative webinar, where we will discuss important new small business rules and updates, changes to 8(a) Program certification, joint venture modifications, HUBZone certification updates (including the new extensive HUBZone proposed rule), key provisions of the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, recent cases relevant to federal contractors, and more.
This is always a great way to end the calendar year in federal contracting. Register here. Hope to see you there!
Proposed Increases to Micro-Purchase, Simplified Acquisition, and Other Thresholds
Every five years, the government is required by 41 U.S.C. § 1908 to adjust the statutory acquisition thresholds for inflation, such as the Micro-Purchase Threshold, Simplified Acquisition Threshold, and others. It just so happens that the last such adjustment occurred back in 2020. As such, the government is once again looking to increase these thresholds in light of the inflation that has occurred over the past five years. In this post, we will look at the proposed increases.
Continue reading…We are Thankful for You, SmallGovCon Readers!
On behalf of our attorney-authors and administrators at SmallGovCon, we wanted to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for all of our loyal blog readers. We love that SmallGovCon is such a widespread resource for contractors, federal agencies and employees, counselors, and others in the federal contracting space. We appreciate all of you for making this platform possible–and for offering us invaluable insight into the questions industry is really asking. Much of our content is driven by you all, our readers. So, keep sending us your inquiries and your feedback. And we will keep working to make SmallGovCon a useful tool for those in the government contracting world for many years to come.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday, and of course, extra long weekend, enjoying valuable time with family and friends. And if it applies, safe travels! Thank you so much!
2024 GAO Bid Protest Report: Numbers Down, Effectiveness Still Even Odds
As we look forward to fall traditions like turkey and mashed potatoes, pumpkin spice, and leaf peeping, don’t sleep on another fall tradition, the GAO bid protest report. This report is GAO’s summary of bid protests for the previous fiscal year. It contains some important insights for how GAO bid protest numbers have changed from prior years. Of course, many bid protests are filed at the Court of Federal Claims, so this is only one part of the picture.
Here are some key points from this year: (1) the key effectiveness metric, showing numbers of sustains and corrective actions at GAO, was similar to prior years at 52% for the 2024 fiscal year and (2) total bid protest numbers were down slightly from 2023 but a little above the number for 2022. Numbers are still lower than in 2021 and 2020.
Continue reading…