Small Businesses Escape Major Contract Killer

www.marketintelligencecenter.com

Update - Back in the fall, the U.S. Senate, with help of executives of major defense contractors, crafted the FY 2017 defense authorization bill that would potentially cut federal government contracts to small companies by as much as a 25 percent. I also commented on this legislation on LinkedIn. 

The legislation in question was Section 838 of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allowed the Department of Defense to count subcontracts with small businesses against the agency's prime contract goals. This was a huge issue for the small business community, since the provision could have replaced as much as $22 billion in prime contracts with subcontracts. 

Section 838 was thankfully stripped from legislation — for now — when President Obama recently signed the 2017 NDAA into law, and replaced it with a call for information from the Pentagon.

The Pentagon will also have to recalculate its annual performance goals for small business contracting after excluding some other types of contracts, such as overseas contracts that typically are not awarded to small businesses.

Small businesses were rightfully worried about this provision, but can breath a sigh of relief, for the time being. Hopefully the Trump Administration will allow for better opportunities for small businesses, and overall improving performance goals for the taxpayer.