The National Association of Small Business Contractors is leading this first virtual Ideas Summit on Small Business Federal Contracting Reform.

We're pulling together the best and most supported views of the small business contracting community to present to our government leaders in order to assure fair access to contracts by America's small business owners.

Read why this effort is needed now .

Share your ideas. Take a time to vote. Or, comment on an idea already posted.   Learn more about our Ideas Summits at http://www.ideassummit.com .

Small Businesses Disappointed With Contracting Share
U.S. Government Failing to Meet Legal Requirement, Group Says

By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 31, 2009

Officials of small businesses, asserting that the government has repeatedly failed to meet its obligation to set aside work for them, are demanding that the Obama administration dramatically increase federal contracts awarded to their firms.

Federal law requires that the government set aside 23 percent of its contracts to small businesses. But small businesses in fiscal 2008 received 21.5 percent of those contracts, the shortfall representing a loss of $30 billion in work to the firms, according to the National Association of Small Business Contractors.

Obama administration officials, while pointing out that awards to small-business contractors set a record in 2008, say they are increasing their outreach efforts to them -- requiring agency heads to participate in many more meet-and-greet events during the remainder of the year in an attempt to reach their goal.

But small-business advocates argue that is not enough. The association, comprising 300,000 small-business contractors, is pressing the administration for several changes, including imposing penalties on agencies that fail to meet the requirement and enforcing fines on large companies that misrepresent themselves as small or minority-owned businesses or misstate their connection with small-business subcontractors. They also are asking President Obama to make the top spot at the Small Business Administration a Cabinet position.

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SMB Contracting: A Litmus Test for President Obama By Keith Gerard

It was no secret in Washington that the Bush administration had little regard for the Small Business Administration. During his two terms in office, the agency’s budget and staffing were cut every year, opening the door to waste and fraud and forcing many programs to operate on a shoestring.

The Republican administration’s big business bias was all too apparent in the way the SBA dragged its feet when it came to cleaning up the awarding of federal contracts to small businesses, long a problematic program in which billions of dollars annually always seem to end up in the pockets of Fortune 500 companies.

The Obama administration, of course, promised sweeping change. The president even wooed small businesses during the campaign and picked an experienced administrator to lead the agency.

But the real litmus test of the administration’s commitment to change — and to small businesses — will be how effectively it deals with long-standing contracting abuses. The new Obama SBA went through its first rite of passage on the issue last Friday when it released its annual “score card” on small business contract awards.

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National Association of Small Business Contractors Calls for Federal Contracting Reform to Open the Doors for Small Business Contractors

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the wake of the FY2008 $30B shortfall in federal contracting with small businesses, the National Association of Small Business Contractors, representing America's more than 300,000 small business contractors, announced today a strong call to Capitol Hill leaders to act swiftly on much needed contracting reforms.

"No amount of positive spin by the Small Business Administration can make up for the over $30B lost in FY2008 due to the federal government's failure to meet small business contracting requirements," says Cris Young, President of the National Association of Small Business Contractors. "This is not a single year accident. The federal government has failed to meet their small business contracting requirements for the past five years," continues Young. "We have called for fair access to contracts for years. Instead we get promises and press releases."

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Good coverage of the federal shortfall in spending with small businesses at the New York Times (by Robb Mandelbaum)

The author actually spent time/research to dig into the issues of manipulating the reporting, spending, false attributions, etc.

>>View the full article here.

The S.B.A. Puts the Best Face on Small-Business Contracting

The Small Business Administration took a victory lap Friday in the press release (pdf) that accompanied its annual scorecard rating the government on awarding contracts to small firms. In fiscal year 2008, which ended last Sept. 30, “small businesses won a record $93.3 billion in federal prime contracts,” the agency said, “an increase of almost $10 billion from 2007.” Moreover, “small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses increased their share of federal contracting dollars by at least $1 billion to $3 billion.”

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