HOT:  Act now!  Tell Congress to investigate this issue and clean up the small business federal contracting goaling data.  Sign the petition and contact your Congressional leaders.

The U.S. Small Business Administrator, Office of Inspector General recently released report finding that:

1. The SBA certified to the accuracy of its FY 2008 contracting data, although 92 percent of the contracting actions in the sample used by the Inspector General contained one or more inaccurate or incomplete data elements in FPDS.
2. While the SBA had developed a data quality plan for FY 2008, it did not fully implement the plan.
3. Due to the volume of errors identified in FPDS, it appears that contracting personnel did not review FPDS data inputs to ensure they reflected accurate information, as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR).
4. While the accuracy of some data elements improved in FY 2009, overall there was a higher rate of error in the FY 2009 data.
5. Approximately 97 percent of the contract actions in their sample contained one or more inaccurate or incomplete data elements, indicating again that SBA contracting personnel were not properly reviewing data entries.
6. SBA's Goaling Report may contain inaccurate information concerning the extent to which the Agency met its small business goals.

Read the full report.