I am very pleased to announce that Jennifer Tucker has joined our team of authors here at SmallGovCon. Jennifer is an associate attorney at Koprince Law LLC, where her practice focuses on federal government contracts law. Before joining Koprince Law LLC, Jennifer practiced contracts law with the Kansas Department of Transportation and the University of Kansas. Jennifer also had the fortune (or is that misfortune?) of being classmates with a certain other government contracts attorney in the 2
Last month, I wrote that the SBA shouldn’t have awarded the government an “A” for its FY 2016 small business goaling achievement. Even though the government exceeded the 23% small business goal, it missed the WOSB and HUBZone goals (the latter by a lot).
In a different context, a recent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal evaluation offers a grading lesson for the SBA. In that case, the Corps assigned a large prime offeror a middling “Acceptable” score for small business participation where
I’m not sure what the weather is going to be like in your neck of the woods, but we are ready for a few 90+ degree days here in Lawrence. It’s a great weekend for sitting in the shade with a cold lemonade and some good reading material. And if you need something to read, we’ve got you covered with the latest in government contracting news.
In this week’s SmallGovCon Week in Review, a Texas contractor has made nearly $2.5 million to settle procurement fraud allegations, the SBA’s administrative
A company bidding to replace an incumbent service contractor cannot presume incumbent workers will take major pay cuts without setting itself up for a potentially successful protest.
FAR 22.12 generally requires successor service contractors to give a right of first refusal to qualified employees under the previous contract. And even when these nondisplacement rules don’t apply, many offerors’ proposals tout their efforts to retain incumbent employees. But asking incumbent employees to take sig
An agency has been caught creating fake source selection documents to pad its file in response to several GAO bid protests.
A recent GAO bid protest decision shows that, after award, the agency created new source selection documents and revised others, then pretended those documents had been part of the contemporaneous source selection file. And although the agency’s conduct resulted in the cancellation of a major procurement, it’s not clear whether the agency employees who created the fake do
It’s been more than a year since the SBA issued a final rule overhauling the limitations on subcontracting for small business contracts. The SBA’s rule, now codified at 13 C.F.R. 125.6, changes the formulas for calculating compliance with the limitations on subcontracting, and allows small businesses to take credit for work performed by similarly situated subcontractors.
But the FAR’s corresponding clauses have yet to be changed, and this has led to a lot of confusion about which rule applies–
Happy February! Our Kansas City Chiefs have once again managed to make it back into the Super Bowl and we couldn’t be happier about it! Whether you’re a Chiefs fan, a 49ers fan or a Swiftie, it’s sure to be a good one! Start gathering those favorite snack recipes and get out the lucky sports gear, folks!
This week in federal government contracting news had some important updates, including a new GSA schedule catalog platform, a report on savings in software purchases, and a revamped SBA tra
This Sunday we celebrate Father’s Day. I’m looking forward to celebrating with my kids, my father, and my brother (himself the father of three). Happy Father’s Day to all the other dads out there!
In this mid-June edition of SmallGovCon Week In Review, about 500 new small business partners were added to the GSA 8(a) STARS II vehicle , a USAID Deputy Director pleads guilty to procurement fraud charges, new SBA Administrator Linda McMahon wants to implement more efficient processes for contracto
Contrary to common misconception, a contractor’s small business status under a receipts-based size standard ordinarily is based on the contractor’s last three completed fiscal years–not the last three completed fiscal years for which the contractor has filed a tax return.
In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals confirmed that a contractor cannot change the relevant three-year period by delaying filing a tax return for the most recently completed fiscal year.
To federal construction contractors, the true legwork may seem to begin only after the government has accepted a proposal and performance has begun. However, a recent Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals decision reinforces that federal construction contractors’ work often should begin long before contract award.
In Zafer Construction Company, ASBCA No. 56769 (2017), the ASBCA rejected a construction contractor’s allegations of unilateral mistake, unconscionability, and differing site condi
Contractors would be wise to keep a close watch on FedBizOpps.gov, otherwise they run the risk missing the chance to protest a sole source award.
When an agency decides to make an award without competition, it often must publish a Justification and Approval (referred to simply as a “J&A”) on FedBizOpps explaining why a competition would not meet the agency’s needs. A potential competitor seeking to protest such an award at the GAO must file the protest before 10 days have passed from public
In its evaluation of past performance, an agency was permitted to disregard a past performance reference prepared by an offeror’s sister company–which also happened to be in line for a subcontracting role.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO upheld the agency’s determination that the sister company’s reference was “inherently biased” and need not be considered in the agency’s past performance evaluation.
The GAO’s decision in PacArctic, LLC, B-413914.3; B-413914.4 (May 30, 2017) involv
The second entry in our new “Why File” series covers some of the main reasons unsuccessful offerors file veteran-owned small business (VOSB) and service-disabled veteran owned small businesses (SDVOSB) status protests. Don’t worry if VOSB and SDVOSB are new acronyms to you–or you just need a refresher–we’ve got a Back to Basics blog for that. If you’re a seasoned vet (pun intended), you already know SBA now handles the Veteran Small Business (VSB) Certification Program (VetCert) (which covers VO
Happy Friday! We hope you had a productive week. We are slowly exiting the deep freeze that we have been enduring the past few weeks, here in the midwest. We’ve had snow, ice, rain and sub degree temperatures! Not fun! We are looking forward to seeing the sun again and warmer days. Hope you are doing well and looking forward to a nice weekend.
This week in federal government contracting news saw some interesting stories, including a push to streamline contracting and GSA not following procu
Wednesday marked the official start of summer, and I’ll be spending the next few months taking full advantage–grilling out on the deck, enjoying a family beach trip, and more. Whether you’re at the beach, on the deck, or sitting in an office cubicle, it’s always nice to have some good reading material. And if you’re here at SmallGovCon, you’re among those who consider government contracting articles to be good reading material.
In this edition of SmallGovCon Week In Review, Bloomberg Governme
According to USASpending.gov, the government spent $472,158,562,285 last year through contracting for services and products with large and small companies nationwide. This was a $34 billion increase over the previous year, and 2017 is anticipating another increase, especially in Department of Defense spending. None of the noted totals include entitlements, grants or non-contract obligations.
The real questions most contractors ask are what does the government really want, and how does it decide
You’ve submitted a great proposal, but then you get the bad news – you lost. As most seasoned contractors know, an unsuccessful offeror often can ask for a debriefing from the agency and in doing so, hopefully get some valuable insight into its decision-making process. Many also understand that the benefits of asking for a debriefing may include extending the timeline for filing a GAO bid protest.
But not all solicitations are subject to the same debriefing regulations, and depending on how the
As we June comes to a close, it’s almost time to celebrate our nation’s independence. I hope all of our readers have a happy and safe 4th of July. We will take a little break from the SmallGovCon Week In Review next week but will be right back at it with a new edition on July 14th.
In this week’s roundup of government contracting news, a study finds that the win rate for incumbent contractors dropped sharply in 2016, a shady North Carolina contractor was found guilty of double billing the gover
Woman-owned small business self-certifications (which the SBA still accepts more than 2 1/2 years after Congress eliminated it) may allow “potentially ineligible businesses” to win WOSB set-aside and sole source work, according to a fascinating new GAO report.
Among other things, the GAO report provides a comprehensive overview of the SBA’s progress addressing problems with the four major socioeconomic preference programs–8(a), SDVOSB, HUBZone and WOSB. And to its credit, the SBA has fixed a n
Everyone has that one friend who has an inbox overflowing with emails. You know the one who just can’t seem to delete any old emails, or go through and sort the legit emails from junk. Well, when it comes to size protests and appeals, government contractors may want to be extra vigilant about checking their email inboxes and spam folders, just in case an important government email arrives.
In a recent decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals found that the size appeal clock started tic
Successful GAO bid protesters can sometimes recover their attorneys’ fees and costs. But when are fees and costs recoverable? How must a claim be supported? When is a claim for costs and attorneys’ fees due?
In the Summer 2017 edition of The Procurement Lawyer (the quarterly publication of the American Bar Association’s Public Contract Law Section), my Koprince Law LLC colleagues Candace Shields and Ian Patterson take an in-depth look at the recovery of costs and attorneys’ fees in GAO bid p
They say that two things in life are guaranteed – death and taxes – and status as a federal contractor may not exempt one from the latter, according to a recent Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals decision.
In Presentation Products, Inc. dba Spinitar, ASBCA No. 61066 (2017), the ASBCA held the contractor was liable to pay a state tax, and the government had no duty to reimburse the contractor. The problem arose from the fact that the contractor did not incorporate state tax costs into its
After receiving “numerous” public comments, the VA has confirmed today that the extended three-year SDVOSB and VOSB verification term–originally adopted in February 2017–will remain in effect indefinitely. Before February, SDVOSBs and VOSBs were required to be reverified every two years.
When the VA originally adopted its SDVOSB and VOSB program regulations in 2010, the VA required participants to be reverified annually. Needless to say, many early participants in the program weren’t happy w
In 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the development of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program, which was then implemented in 2020 as an interim rule. We blogged about that way back in 2020. This program was designed to give a certification to contractors based on the depth and effectiveness of their cybersecurity systems to help ensure that contractors implement required security measures. As DoD put it, “[t]he CMMC model consists of maturity processes and c
I’m back in the office after a great family beach vacation in Florida over the 4th of July. I have a confession to make: I didn’t read a single government contracts article during my trip. My beach reads consisted entirely of popular fiction with no redeeming social or educational value whatsoever.
But that was then, and this is now–I’m back, and so is the SmallGovCon Week In Review. This edition includes an update on the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, a DHS contract called out as the
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