SmallGovCon Weeks In Review: December 26, 2016 – January 6, 2017

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Happy New Year and welcome back to the SmallGovCon Week In Review. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable holiday season and is jumping full force into 2017. We bring you a double edition today, as we took a little time off from delivering you our weekly publication last week.

It may have been the holiday season, but it was still a busy two weeks of developments in the world of federal government contracting. In this week’s edition, the President has signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (click here for SmallGovCon‘s complete 2017 NDAA coverage), alleged procurement fraud results in a whopping $4.5 million settlement, President-elect Trump’s administration may prioritize Buy American policies, Guy Timberlake takes a look at how FY 2016 contracting dollars were obligated, and much more.

  • Guy Timberlake takes a look at how fiscal year 2016 obligated dollars got to small business concerns based on solicitation type and the award instruments used to help small businesses minimize lost dollars and lost time. [GovConChannel]
  • Frustrations with security clearance waiting times are growing, but the latest report from Performance.gov shows the administration spent the year putting several key building blocks in place to implement future security clearance reforms and insider threat programs. [Federal News Radio]
  • A Florida-based company will shell out $4.5 million to settle allegations that it submitted inflated invoices to the government for work performed at the Joint Base Andrews. [United States Department of Justice]
  • President-elect Trump said that his administration will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American–will the Buy American Act be more strictly applied? [MarketWatch]
  • President Obama signed the 2017 NDAA–loaded with government contracting provisions—into law. [Military Times]
  • Small business contractors breathed a sigh of relief after the final version of the 2017 NDAA omitted a proposed provision that would have gutted the DoD’s small business goaling program. [Forbes]
  • Several dozen companies earned $1 billion or more from federal contracts in Fiscal Year 2015, and 34 of those are publicly traded companies. CNBC has compiled a list of the top earners. [CNBC]
  • How well do you understand how agencies classify the goods and services you want them to buy from you? Guy Timberlake encourages contractors to look beyond NAICS codes. [GovConChannel]
  • U.S. Cyber Command will soon be hiring an acquisition expert to handle the $75 million Congress afforded the command in last year’s defense authorization act. [Federal News Radio]
  • A recent report to Congress ties lower contract costs, reduced costs overruns and arrested cost growth on major programs with the DoD’s “should cost” initiative. [Federal News Radio]
  • The 2017 NDAA reorganizes the Department of Defense acquisition but splitting up the AT&L office isn’t the only organizational change spelled out in the 2017 NDAA. [Washington Technology]
  • Too big to debar? The Department of Labor is trying to bar Google from doing business with the federal government unless Google turns over confidential information about thousands of employees. [CBS News]
  • A December 29th audit substantiated allegations that Bonneville Power’s administration of 1,921 active service contracts “created prohibited personal services contracts by establishing improper employer/employee relationships with supplemental labor workers.” [Government Executive]