By Richard D. Lieberman, Consultant
Each fiscal year, the Small Business Administration reports on achievement of procurement goals, as required by Section 15(g) of the Small Business Act. 15 U.S.C.§ 644(g) (1) includes the various small business procurement goals which are summarized below:
Small Business Concerns: Not less than 23% of the total value of all prime contract awards for each fiscal year
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Business: Not less than 5% of the total value of all prime contract and subcontract awards for each fiscal year
Women Owned Small Business: Not less than 5% of the total value of all prime contract and subcontract awards for each fiscal year
Service-disabled Veteran-owned Small Businesses : Not less than 3% of the total value of all prime contract and subcontract awards for each fiscal year
Historically Underutilized Business Zone Businesses: Not less than 3% of the total value of all prime contract and subcontract awards for each fiscal year.
Over the summer, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) reported that the federal government had exceeded its small business federal prime contracting goal in fiscal year 2020, awarding 26.01 percent or $145.7 billion in federal contract dollars to small business. This was a $13 billion increase from the previous fiscal year. In addition, the SBA reported that the federal government had awarded $82.8 billion in subcontracts to small businesses.
SBA reported that in 2020, the government exceeded the service disabled veteran owned small business and small disadvantaged business goals of 3 percent and 5 percent, respectively. However, the government fell short of meeting the goals for women owned small business and HUBZone businesses, 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively. In addition, despite the overall increase in the value of small business awards, the number of small businesses receiving prime contracts with the federal government actually decreased.
Finally, the SBA releases an annual scorecard that measures how well federal achieve their goals and provides data on agency-specific progress. The details are available online at the SBA website.+
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Richard D. Lieberman’s FAR Consulting & Training at https://www.richarddlieberman.com/, and Mistakes in Government Contracting at https://richarddlieberman.wixsite.com/mistakes