ASBL - New Hampshire Small Businesses Could Lose Millions with New SBA Policy

Petaluma, Calif.- A Small Business Administration Policy proposed by Administrator Steven Preston is set to go into effect June 30th and could cost New Hampshire’s 31,593 businesses with less than 500 employees, millions of dollars over the next five years.

The proposed policy would call for the five-year re-certification of small business status for all firms who have been awarded a federal small business contract based on that standard. The policy will allow Fortune 1000 corporations and their subsidiaries to continue to collect on existing federal small business contracts through the year 2012.

“Five-year re-certification will cost New Hampshire small businesses millions,” American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman said. “Annual re-certification is the best, most reasonable and prudent method of removing Fortune 1000 corporations and their subsidiaries from America’s federal small business contracting program.”

Without annual re-certification, U.S. firms will loose more than $60 billion a year, or more than $300 billion over the next five-years. This could translate to huge losses for New Hampshire small businesses through 2012, Chapman emphasized.

In recent years, the SBA, the SBA Office Inspector General, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Office of Management and Budget and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship have all endorsed an annual re-certification.

The Preston policy could force legitimate small businesses in New Hampshire to compete with some of the largest businesses in the country for even the smallest federal contracts. Groups like the American Small Business League are pledging to rally the support of small businesses around the country and even take legal action if necessary to stop the policy from going into effect.

“The proposed SBA policy is bad for small business and it is bad for New Hampshire,” Chapman said. “New Hampshire’s small business supply more than 305,000 jobs in the state; annual re-certification for all firms with existing federal small business contracts will only protect those employers and their employees.”

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