The effort to extend sole-source set-asides to the Small Business Administration’s program for women-owned small businesses is getting an extra boost with the support of the new SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet.

      “Another important tool for federal agencies is sole-source authority. I'm encouraging Congress to give federal agencies this tool to level the playing field for women-owned businesses,” Contreras-Sweet said at an event at the Center for American Progress on June 10.

      Her support is timely because the Senate soon will be considering a bill that allows registered participants in the SBA’s Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) program to receive sole-source contracts.

      The House recently approved a similar amendment submitted by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-CA, in the fiscal 2015 national defense authorization legislation.

      The Senate bill was introduced last week by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH.

      The push for sole-sourcing highlights some of the recent challenges faced by the SBA’s WOSB program. The program was initiated in 2011 after a decade-long campaign, with the goal of assisting women-owned small firms in industries in which they are underrepresented. That currently consists of 83 industries. In fiscal 2013, Congress lifted caps on awards to WOSBs in several of those industries.

      While there currently are 23,000 registered WOSBs in the SBA program, those women-owned companies won only $100 million in federal contracts through the program in fiscal 2013, according to SBA spokeswoman Tiffani Clements.

      Total SBA WOSB contract awards to date equal $225 million, she said.

      But those numbers alone do not tell the whole story. While the SBA’s WOSB program is growing rapidly, there are many women-owned companies that are winning federal contracts awarded separately from the SBA WOSB program.

      According to the White House Small Business Dashboard, a dynamic display of frequently-updated data, women-owned small businesses won $15.4 billion out of $356 billion in eligible contracts in fiscal 2013, or a 4.3% share. The goal is 5%.

      There also is the broader pool of about 55,000 women-owned firms, large and small, who won $20 billion in federal contract prime awards out of a total of $462 billion in such awards in fiscal 2013, according to USASpending.gov and the Federal Procurement Data System. That also was 4.3% of the total..

      Those award figures together suggest about $4.6 billion won by women-owned vendors that were “other than small” in fiscal 2013.

      While the SBA WOSB program was established to create set-asides for women-owned vendors to give them a leg up on contracts, there have been difficulties for agencies in meeting the preconditions needed for a WOSB competitive set-aside to be created, according to advocates. One of those preconditions is to identify two or more women-owned small businesses that are capable of doing the work.

      Allowing non-competitive sole-sourcing for the SBA WOSBs would address that problem, and would put the SBA WOSB program on par with the other SBA small business programs that have sole-sourcing and set-asides, including programs for firms that are 8(a) certified, HUBZone or service-disabled veteran-owned (SDVOSBs).

      “Currently, agencies must find multiple women-owned small businesses interested and capable of competing for a contract before the WOSB program can be used. Sole-source authority removes this burden, making it easier for agencies to award contracts to women through the program. All other small business contracting programs have this ability, so making this change is about fairness,” the Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) group said in a recent statement.

      The amount of prime contracts awarded through sole-sourcing currently is substantial.

      “Of the $50 billion set aside for small businesses in fiscal 2013, 16% ($7.9 billion) was awarded through sole-source contracts,” Clements, the SBA spokeswoman, wrote to Set-Aside Alert in an email.

      “That is an advantage for the other programs that the women-owned firms do not have,” Anne Sullivan, government relations manager for WIPP, told Set-Aside Alert. “It is an uneven playing field.”

      Set-Aside Alert’s own analysis of data from USASpending.gov also uncovered gaps in noncompetitive contracts awarded to women-owned firms vs. other groups.

      Here is what we found:

• Women-owned firms (large and small) won $4 billion in non-competed contracts in fiscal 2013, which was 20% of their total contracts. About 2,100 of the women-ownd firms also are 8(a)s, among other overlaps.
• 8(a) firms won $8.9 billion noncompetitively, which was 40% of total 8(a) contracts that year.
• Native-American-owned firms won $3.8 billion noncompetitively (primarily through 8(a) and HUBZone programs), which was 40% of their total.
• HUBZone firms won $1.1 billion noncompetitively, which was 17% of their total.
• and SDVOSBs (service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses) won $1.9 billion noncompetitively, which was 14% of their total.