Critic Millions in federal small-business contracts went to big corporations

The American Small Business League, a longtime critic of the accuracy of government reporting on contracts awarded by federal agencies to small business, said the Small Business Administration’s fiscal 2010 contract scorecard incorrectly classified millions of dollars in contracts to big corporation as small-business awards.

The American Small Business League, a longtime critic of the accuracy of government reporting on contracts awarded by federal agencies to small business, said the Small Business Administration’s fiscal 2010 contract scorecard incorrectly classified millions of dollars in contracts to big corporation as small-business awards.

The SBA reported nearly $100 billion in federal contracts went to small businesses in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, representing 22.7 percent of federal spend — close to the government’s goal of 23 percent of federal procurement with small business. According to the ASBL, some of the “small businesses” that won such funding included Lockheed Martin and Dell Inc. 

The SBA said it continues to work to “strengthen the integrity of the contracting data and more thoroughly address errors.” Agency spokesman Mike Stamler said the 2010 data does contain reporting errors: “Although we think this is the cleanest data yet, there remains room for improvement across the government.”

He said there are three reasons large businesses show up in the data base as receiving small-business contracts: “simple human error by government contracting officers, failure by companies and contract officers to adjust for mergers and acquisitions, and growth by companies” that put them over the small-business size limit.

He said the SBA asks the federal agencies “to certify the accuracy of the data, and they do certify it — and there are still errors. The SBA looks through it to discover as many anomalies as we can and report it to the agencies and ask them to examine them and see if they need to make changes, and then they make changes.”

Total federal contracts awarded to New Jersey companies in 2010 were $9.8 billion, up from $9.6 billion in 2009, according to a government website. Richard Zilg, SBA assistant district director for New Jersey, said he did not have a breakout for small businesses, but he said contract awards to New Jersey small businesses increased in 2010.

“Most (government) contracting officers like to work with small businesses,” Zilg said. “Because being mandated to do it, they like the idea that small businesses are more flexible and faster to react than larger organizations.”

Zilg said he advises New Jersey firms that “work in all 50 states and overseas; we have firms that have worked in Alaska.”