SBA, without much commentary, recently removed the so-called reasonable commute requirement for service-disabled veterans (SDV) who owned or managed service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). This rule used to require that veterans live near the principal office or job site, but it sometimes caused issues for SDVOSBs because of how restrictive it could be. Thankfully, SBA has removed this requirement. Since SBA brought little attention to this change, we want to highlight it in this post and say farewell to this SDVOSB requirement.
Continue reading…SBA Final Rule Updates Employee-Based Size Standards, but not for Nonmanufacturer Rule
This month, SBA issued a final rule updating its size standards for multiple NAICS codes in the manufacturing industries and industries with employee-based size standards in other sectors (except wholesale trade and retail trade). As the final rule explains in great detail, SBA increased some of the NAICS code’s size standards and retained others. Additionally, SBA decided to retain an employee based size standard for the nonmanufacturer rule. Let’s take a closer look.
Continue reading…Webinar Event: Regulatory Updates in Government Contracting, February 23, 10:00-11:30am MST
The government contracting legal landscape has gone through many important changes in 2022 and the first part of 2023, including new small business rules, SDVOSB certification requirements, recent domestic preference changes under the Buy American Act, key provisions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and other laws passed in 2022, and much more.
In this session, John Holtz and I, will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes in 2022, and the projected changes in the first months of 2023. We hope you will join us for this informative event hosted by Texas El Paso Apex Accelerators (formerly PTAC).
UTSA Apex Accelerator Webinar: Government Contracts Legal Update 2023, February 21, 2023, 10:00-11:30am CST
The government contracting legal landscape has gone through many important changes in 2022 and the first part of 2023, including new small business rules, SDVOSB certification requirements, recent domestic preference changes under the Buy American Act, and much more. In this session we will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes. This is a “no-cost” Training. Register here.
SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 13-17, 2023
Happy Friday and happy belated Valentine’s Day. We hope you had a great week and found some time to celebrate with your loved ones. We have certainly been in celebration mode with the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl on Sunday. What an exciting game and what a great season!
There was a lot of news from the federal government contracting world this week, as well. We have included a few articles that we hope will be of interest to you below, including those on small business contracting involvement and CIO-SP4 protests. Enjoy your weekend.
Continue reading…DoD to Utilize Category Management for Procurements, But this time to Increase Small Business Contracts
Last month, the Department of Defense (DoD), released a memorandum to its contracting specialists asking them to utilize the popular but controversial category management tactics to attempt to increase small business participation in DoD procurements. Some have said that category management tends to decrease small business spend by, for instance, pushing procurement to larger contracting vehicles, so this memo attempts to turn conventional wisdom on its head. The DoD’s intentions with this memorandum will likely increase use of category management at the largest governmental buyers, despite this contracting trend being criticized as ineffective or counter productive to increasing small business participation. Below we dig into what the memo says.
Continue reading…New Report Unveils Magnitude of Fraud in SBA COVID-19 Relief Programs
Whether we want to or not, the country will continue to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come in a multitude of ways. Many actions were taken by the government in the early days to help United States’ citizens through the largely unprecedented times, particularly to help support small businesses. As I’m sure many small business owners would say, the assistance offered through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program was critical to small business owners who, in the early days of 2020, were suddenly facing an unknown future. As closures and restrictions were put into place from every level of government in a bid to try to protect Americans from the novel virus, hospitals and their staff, doctors, and scientists all scrambled to contain the virus and determine the best path forward.
PPP and EIDL applications flooded the SBA in the hopes that the assistance offered through these programs would help to prevent millions of small businesses from sinking under the weight of the pandemic. Unfortunately, the roughly $1.2 trillion in assistance provided by the programs, while good-intentioned and critical to many small business owners’ chances of survival, was not immune to massive levels of fraud. In a report released on January 30, 2023, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) details a breakdown of the fraud, what is being done about it, and safeguards to help prevent it from happening again.
Continue reading…