SBA Spins the Numbers: Small Business Contracting Figures Are Revised An SBA press release trumpeted the good news: the number of prime contract dollars going to small businesses in fiscal 2003 has been revised upward to $65.5 billion, from $62.7 billion reported in March. The new numbers mean small firms won 23.6% of federal dollars. What SBA did not say: the revision reduces the small business share from 25.4% in the March estimate. Even with the lower share, federal agencies exceeded the 23% goal for small business contracting for the first time. The reliability of the official figures is widely questioned. This year GSA introduced a new Federal Procurement Data System in an effort to produce more accurate results. Paul Murphy, president of Eagle Eye Publishers, said the official figures exclude contracts awarded to Federal Prison Industries and those going to the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Program for the blind and severely disabled. The result is to make the small business share look bigger. But Murphy adds that the official figures fail to count some small business dollars because they do not include purchases of less than $25,000 through GSA schedules and other governmentwide contracts. SBA said the dollars awarded to small firms grew by 23% over the previous year. ”Not only did the government meet its own stringent statutory goals, but it broke records by awarding more contracting dollars to America’s small businesses than ever before,” said Emily Murphy, a special adviser in SBA’s government contracting office. Defense spending accounted for 70% of federal procurement in 2003, nearly $227 billion, according to DOD figures, 10 times as much as the second-biggest spender, the Energy Department.