SmallGovCon Week In Review: August 8-12, 2016

Posted on by

This week I had the pleasure of speaking at the 20th Annual Government Procurement Conference in Arlington, Texas. It was a great event and I was glad to see so many familiar faces. Next up, I’ll be in Des Moines on August 23rd for the Iowa Vendor Conference, where I’ll be joined by my friend Guy Timberlake for a great day of networking and information sessions.

But even as I log miles on the air and on the highways, there’s no mistaking the fact that we’re in the last days of the government fiscal year–and that means a busy week of government contracting news.  This week, SmallGovCon Week In Review takes a look at stories involving an update to CAGE codes, some Milwaukee businesses under investigation for wrongly portraying themselves as veteran-owned and minority-owned, a lack of oversight allowed contractors to overbill a government customer, a look at the uptick in government spending as the fourth quarter winds down, and much more.

  • The Defense Logistics Agency will, for the first time in 44 years, allow CAGE codes to expire. [Defense Logistics Agency]
  • Has the Homeland Security Department and it’s components gone overboard with agile? [Federal News Radio]
  • Several Milwaukee-area businesses are under investigation for falsely claiming  they were owned by minorities and military veterans in order to win government contracts. [Daily Progress]
  • The Defense Information Systems Agency said it will amend the ENCORE III RFP to fix some of the problems pointed out by protesters that were upheld by the GAO last week. [Federal News Radio]
  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed contractors to overbill the government for more than $130,000 because the agency didn’t “always review contractor invoices to ensure costs claimed were allowable and adequately supported.” [The Daily Caller]
  • A proposed rule from the SBA would update the regulations governing the delivery and oversight of its business lending programs. [Federal Register]
  • The SBA is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit claiming it uses “creative accounting” for federal contracting benchmarks. [Federal News Radio]
  • The procurement policy world is heating up as summer begins to wind down and we jump into the final stretch of the fiscal year. [Federal News Radio]
  • Companies fraudulently got $268 million in contracts, according to a recent affidavit. [BizTimes]
  • A trifecta of companies protested the Department of Defense TRICARE contract awards, including the winner of the contract. [Federal News Radio]
  • The SBA has launched a new website that helps women-owned small businesses more easily manage eligibility and certification documents for the WOSB Federal Contract Program. [GCN]
  • An increasingly sluggish security review process is forcing some recruiters, contractors and agencies to change the way they enlist new qualified, cleared candidates. [Federal News Radio]