While the numbers still are not official, the Obama Administration appears nearly certain to meet three out of five of its small business contracting goals for fiscal 2013, despite the deep budget cuts of sequestration.

      The milestones likely to be reached are the 23% goal for overall small business contracting, 5% goal for small disadvantaged contracting and the 3% goal for contracting with service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), according to the White House’s online Small Business Dashboard, as of May 7.

      Once the numbers are made official, it would be the first time the governmentwide 23% goal has been reached since at least fiscal 2005. It also would be the first time the SDVOSB goal has been attained since the program was established in 2003, according to the dashboard.

      Those results are surprising in light of the estimated 11% cut in federal contracting dollars in fiscal 2013, according to Kevin Plexico, vice president of Deltek Inc. market research firm.

      “Given the economic challenges of late and the budget cuts, agencies have been under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to ensure that the impact on small businesses is minimized,” Plexico wrote in a recent column. “In response, they seem to have increased their efforts to maximize their contracting with small businesses.”

      The amount of eligible dollars for small businesses shrunk from $406 billion in fiscal 2012 to $356 billion in fiscal 2013, a 12% drop, the dashboard shows. While percentages going to small vendors rose, the total value of the awards to small businesses decreased from $90 billion in fiscal 2012 to $83 billion in fiscal 2013.

      In addition to the government meeting the overall 23% goal, 14 of the 18 largest agencies met their negotiated small business goal, which varied from 7% to 54%. The agencies with the highest percentages were Interior, Agriculture, Transportation, and EPA.

      Agencies that fell short included the Energy and Defense departments.

      Also surprising is the strong expansion trend for SDVOSBs, the dashboards for recent years indicate.

      The percentage of federal contracts going to SDVOSBs has more than doubled since fiscal 2008, when it was 1.4%, increasing to 3.38% in fiscal 2013.

      At the same time, the dollar value of awards to SDVOSBs nearly doubled during the same period, from $6.5 billion in fiscal 2008 to $12 billion in fiscal 2013, rising every year.

      During the same period, the number of large federal agencies meeting the SDVOSB goal increase dramatically.

      In fiscal 2008, only three of the 18 largest agencies met the 3% goal for SDVOSB contracting: Veterans Affairs, with 13%; Labor Department, 4%; and EPA, 4%. The VA and the EPA are the only large federal agencies that have met the SDVOSB goal each year for the past six years.

      By fiscal 2013, 12 out of the 18 largest agencies met the SDVOSB goal.

      The six large agencies that did not meet the SDVOSB goal were Energy, Education, NASA, Health & Human Services, Justice, Defense and Agriculture.

      While the government did not reach the 5% goal for contracting with women-owned small businesses (WOSBs), 13 of the 18 largest federal agencies met that benchmark in fiscal 2013, the dashboard stated.

      The five large agencies that did not meet the benchmark for women-owned small businesses were the Defense, Energy, Veterans Affairs, NASA and Justice departments.

The large agencies that met the WOSB goal and had the highest proportion of women-owned contracting were the Commerce, HUD, Interior, Transportation and Treasury departments, in that order.

      The large agencies that met the WOSB goal and had the highest proportion of women-owned contracting were the Commerce, HUD, Interior, Transportation and Treasury departments, in that order.

      Not all the dashboard news was good for small businesses.

      The government achieved only 1.75% in HUBZone small business contracting, falling short of the 3% HUBZone goal. (Editor’s note: For more details on HUBZones, see Set-Aside Alert issue of April 18).

      Only six of the largest 18 agencies attained their HUBZone goal in fiscal 2013: Transportation, Interior, Treasury, Agriculture, Homeland Security and Labor departments, the dashboard indicated.

      The dashboard is an online system that displays the latest federal procurement data, which is updated frequently. The fiscal 2013 is presumed to be more than 90% complete to date. The official figures for the 2013 fiscal year are expected to be released shortly by the Small Business Administration.

More information: White House’s Small Business Dashboard http://smallbusiness.data.gov/
Kevin Plexico column http://goo.gl/Pq0qQw