Government increased prime contracts to small businesses for second straight year.

Call it “No State Agency Left Behind.” The federal government has made significant progress toward its small business contracting goals, with 13 agencies earning an “A,” five agencies earning a “B,” four agencies earning a “C” and two agencies earning a “D.”

Overall, the federal government showed an increase in prime contract dollars to small businesses for the second straight year after four years of decline, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. In FY 2010, small businesses won a record $97.95 billion in federal contracts, or 22.7 percent of eligible contracting dollars. While this missed the government-wide goal of 23 percent, it marks the largest single year increase in more than five years, and is a significant improvement over FY 2009, when 21.9 percent of contracting dollars were awarded to small businesses. The increase earned the government an overall grade of “B,” but though it was only about one point shy of an “A,” according an SBA news release.

“When the federal government gets contracts into the hands of small businesses, it is a ‘win-win’ situation: small businesses have the opportunity to grow and create jobs and the federal government gets access to some of the most innovative and nimble entrepreneurs,” said SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills.  “We are proud of the achievement the government has made, but are determined that the government will meet and exceed the goal.” 

The FY 2010 Small Business Procurement Scorecards assessing each agency’s yearly small business contracting achievement against its goal showed that 10 agencies’ grades increased from FY 2009, 10 agencies’ grades stayed the same and four agencies’ grades decreased. Performance in four out of five of the small business prime contracting categories showed significant improvement, with increases in contract dollars and also in performance against statutory goals. 

SBA Ramping Up Efforts
Mills said the SBA is focused on a number of initiatives to help increase small business contracting opportunities, as well as prevent waste, fraud and abuse. The efforts include:

• Implementation of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010// The Act included 19 provisions related to increasing opportunities for small business contracting and minimizing fraud, waste or abuse in the programs.
• Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses// The president established a task force to identify recommendations to increase opportunities for small businesses to compete for and win federal contracts.
• Collaboration with White House and Senior Agency Officials// The SBA is collaborating with the Obama administration to ensure senior officials at each agency are aware of their role in meeting the government-wide small business contracting goal and holding them accountable to the goals.
• Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program// This new program will allow contracting officers to set-aside contracts for women-owned small businesses for the first time in fiscal year 2011.
• Revised 8(a) Business Development Regulations// The SBA recently published new regulations for this program for the first time in over a decade.  These revisions will help ensure the benefits of the 8(a) program go to the intended recipients.

Setting Contracting Goals
Every two years, the SBA works with each federal agency to set prime and subcontracting goals. Agency grades are based on the agreed upon goals.  Each federal agency has a different small business contracting goal, and the SBA ensures that the sum total of all of the goals exceeds the 23 percent target established by law.

The prime and subcontracting component goals include goals for small businesses, small businesses owned by women, small disadvantaged businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and small businesses located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones).

Small Business Summary Report

The individual agency scorecards are at http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-procurement-goaling-scorecards.