WASHINGTON – After reviewing the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) fourth annual small business scorecard, United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair, Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today commented on the Federal Government’s effort to increase federal contracting opportunities among small businesses. According to the most recent scorecard, for fiscal year 2009, small businesses won a record $96.8 billion in federal prime contracts, an increase of more than $3 billion from 2008. Small businesses won 21.89 percent of all federal spending in FY2009 more than one percentage point shy of the 23 percent goal.
“With a record $96.8 billion flowing into small businesses across the country, the Federal Government is well on its way to ensure small businesses are not left in the dark,” Senator Landrieu said. “We will not stop until the Federal agencies receive an A for their efforts to include small businesses in contracting opportunities. Increasing contracts to our small businesses boosts revenue, allows small firms to hire more workers and rejuvenates our national economy. The Small Business Jobs Creation Act is a move in the right direction to close loopholes that have left small businesses out of the procurement process, and puts us well on our way to exceeding the 23 percent contracting requirement to small businesses.
“While the overall number of contracts to small businesses has increased, we cannot ignore the fact that the overall goal, including Women-Owned Businesses, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses and businesses in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones) individually, fell short of reaching their mandated goals,” Senator Landrieu continued. “Businesses participating in these programs have a great deal to gain from the Federal government’s contracting opportunities. All of these numbers are encouraging, but we cannot settle for anything less than what is required of the Federal government.”
The scorecard calculated the amount of Federal spending for prime and subcontracting for fiscal year 2009 (Oct. 1, 2008-Sept. 30, 2009) and evaluated agencies to ensure small businesses remain an integral part of the federal contracting process. SBA graded 24 agencies on each of the individual prime contracting goals established by Congress and used a new A+ through F letter grade system. The Federal government scored an overall average of 94.1 percent with 95.43 percent prime contracting achievement and an 83.05 percent subcontracting achievement.
The full Small Business Procurement Scorecard can be viewed by clicking here.
