SBA

On November 6, 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) issued a proposed rule (the “Proposed Rule”) to clarify the byzantine verification process for veteran-owned small businesses (“VOSB”) and veteran-owned service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (“SDVOSB”)1 who want to participate in the VA’s Veterans First Contracting Program.  VA Veteran-Owned Small Business Verification Guidelines, Proposed Rule, 80 Fed. Reg. 68,795 (to be codified at 38 C.F.R. Part 74). The Proposed Rule revises a 2013 advanced notice of proposed rulemaking and considers 39 public comments received in response to the prior notice.  Comments on the latest proposed rule are due on or before January 5, 2016.

Under the Veterans First Contracting Program, the VA offers set-asides and sole source opportunities to certified VOSB and SDVOSB firms.  Unfortunately, the program has struggled to gain a foothold in the government procurement landscape because its VA-administered regulations are confusing and the set-aside opportunities are limited to VA procurements.  At the same time, the Government Accountability Office and the VA’s Office of the Inspector General have targeted the program for pervasive fraud, and stakeholders have criticized the verification program as unnecessarily rigorous when compared against other socio-economic programs administered by the Small Business Administration (“SBA”).

As a result, through its Proposed Rule, the VA “seeks to find an appropriate balance between preventing fraud . . . and providing a process that would make it easier for more VOSBs to become verified.”  The VA attempts to strike this balance by significantly amending the VOSB ownership regulations to make them easier to understand, and bringing many of the requirements in line with SBA interpretations of similar requirements under similar programs.Continue Reading VA Proposes to Make VOSB Verification Easier Under the Veterans First Contracting Program

Last week, the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) published a proposed rule that if implemented will increase the opportunity for large and small businesses to partner on unrestricted competitions and small business set asides by creating a comprehensive Mentor-Protégé Program that will allow any type of small business contractor to partner with another company without risking the contractor’s small business status.  The new comprehensive Program is modeled on the current 8(a) Mentor-Protégé Program, which will remain in effect but be modified under the proposed rule to create more opportunities for contracting with small disadvantaged businesses.  The proposed rule comes shortly after another proposal from the SBA that—among other sweeping changes—will create new opportunities for partnerships between similarly situated small businesses, such as allowing joint ventures to qualify as small so long as each individual partner qualifies as small.

The proposed rule implements provisions of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, which together authorized the SBA to expand the current 8(a) Mentor-Protégé Program to all small businesses, including HUBZone, women-owned, and service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses, as well as small businesses that do not qualify for a particular socioeconomic subcategory.  The SBA estimates that approximately 2,000 small businesses could participate in the new comprehensive Program, resulting in contracts valued at approximately $2 billion per year.  In addition to creating opportunities for large and small businesses to partner on small business set asides, the comprehensive Program will likely benefit both large and small businesses in unrestricted competitions.  If implemented, small businesses could compete for larger awards and large businesses could take advantage of price evaluation preferences when partnering with HUBZone small businesses and potentially derive other benefits currently offered to large businesses that subcontract with protégé firms, such as receiving evaluation preferences or additional credit toward obtaining small business subcontracting goals.Continue Reading SBA Proposes Comprehensive Small Business Mentor-Protégé Program

Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) recently introduced the Reforming Federal Procurement of Information Technology (“RFP-IT”) Act. This Act is similar in many ways to earlier drafts of the FITARA bill on which we have previously reported, with a few notable differences. Among other things, the RFP-IT Act would:…
Continue Reading House introduces the “Reforming Federal Procurement of Information Technology Act”