Office supplies ordered in Miami, awarded to a firm in Belarus and counted as small business contract…

Recently we've been working to eliminate the abuse under the "miscellaneous foreign contracts" loophole, which has allowed for over 6 billion dollars in foreign contracts to be counted towards the small business goal in FY 06.

One example of this abuse occurred in April of 2006 when a contracting office located in Miami awarded a $951,876 contract for office supplies to a firm in Belarus , counting it as small business contract. The award was entered as
"MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN CONTRACTORS" DUNS # 123456787. Searching on FPDS-NG, the records shows this "company" having "$1000" in revenue and "10 employees" when in reality, this is not a company at all and this has created a loophole allowing contracting officers to award contracts to foreign entities in the guise of small business awards.

If you’d like to see this for your self go to fedspending.org or search by

Select; "contracts" – Select; "Advanced Search Contracts Database"

Select; Place of Performance / Place Country -- Belarus

Select; Contract Details / Product or Service Category --75: office supplies

Select; "Get list of transactions" and then click "$951,876"

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Situations such as the above keep us here at ASBL motivated in working for small business. The ASBL continues to work on exposing the 6 billion dollar abuse of the "miscellaneous foreign contracts" category and we are working to prevent this from being counted towards the U.S. Small Business goal. However we need your help. If you've lost a legitimate small business contract to a large or international firm, please email us at info (at) asbl.com and share your story with us.

Lloyd Chapman Prompts SBA to Release Top 100 Recipients of Small Business Contracts

The following transcript was taken from a teleconference with the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Steven Preston on Friday, August 17, 2007. These comments took place at roughly 51 minutes into the conference.

Lloyd Chapman: Wouldn’t it improve transparency if the Small Business Administration listed the top 100 recipients of small business contracts online?

Steven Preston: That is a great idea; I had never thought of that, we should take a look at that.

Preston: Are you concerned because the top 100 would show people that may not be small?

Chapman: Yea, I am concerned because the top 100 includes Lockheed, Boeing, and Halliburton. It is predominantly Fortune 1000 corporations.

Preston: Yea, that is interesting, I don’t know about the systems of the past, but yea we will take a look at that.


SBA Administrator Discusses Major Reforms to Government Contracting, Friday, August 17th

Top 50 Small Business Contractors, According to FEDMINE.US

Here are the Top 50 recipients of federal small business contracts according to FEDMINE.US. As you will see there are several large companies included on this list that are not included on the SBA's recent Top 100 list. These numbers are pulled directly from FPDS-NG, as FEDMINE.US has access to the XML data feed, which gives them access to all of the data available on FPDS-NG. We challenge the SBA to publish its methodology for compiling its list of the Top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts.

FEDMINE.US Top 50 recipients of Small Business Contracts

Small Business Matters; Presidential Race Silent on Owners' Issues

Small Business Matters - Presidential Race Silent on Owners' Issues
2007-11-30
Boston Herald
By JENNIFER HELDT POWELL

ASBL questions regarding the SBA's Top 100 Small Business Government Contractors

Today the SBA released their “Top 100 Small Business Government Contractors” report.

However with this SBA release we’re shocked to see that large firms still show up on their scrubbed (their words) report.

Here is one of the most interesting quotes from the SBA's report,

“Four of the Top 100 firms were affected by miscodings. Three of them were incorrectly identified as “other than small,” even though the companies are legitimate small businesses. One company was miscoded as a small business in 2006, even though it was not small.”

Why does the SBA use the term “other than small” to mean “large business”? Why not call a spade a spade?

With just quick sampling we’ve found large businesses listed in the top 100. Let us know your thoughts. Why do these large firms receive small business contracts?

Why is Sierra Nevada Corporation considered small with over 900 employees and 344 millions dollars in sales?

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Hoover’s profile

World Wide Technology has over one thousand employees and over 2 billion dollars in revenue however they are receiving small business contracts.

World Wide Technology Hoover’s Profile

GTSI has over 850 million dollars in sales and over 900 employees however they are receiving small business contracts.

GTSI Hoover’s Profile
According to GTSI's 1999 10K
"As a result of the acquisition of the BTG Division in February 1998,
GTSI no longer qualifies as a small business for future contract awards."

GTSI IR site

SBA Promotes Federal Contracting Transparency With Release of Top 100 Report

US Chamber donors and CNN You Tube debate

Here is an interesting blog entry from MotherJones regarding the US Chamber and how they are dragging their feet in terms of discoursing their donors.

MotherJones US Chamber Blog

Did you have a chance to watch the CNN/You Tube debate last night? If you did you may have noticed that small business issued where once again ignored. It will be interesting to see who from either party comes forward as the voice of small business.

CNN You Tube Transcript

Vote “Yes” on S.2300 and Show Your Support for Small Businesses

S.2300 the, Small Business Contracting Revitalization Act of 2007 addresses contract bundling, annual re-certification via CCR, subcontractor misrepresentation and expands opportunities for minority, women and service-disabled veteran owned small business. This will help end abuse in Federal Small business contracting with out burdening the small business. We encourage our members and small business supporters alike to express their support for S.2300 and the removal of large firms from federal small business contracting.