Leney: VA to start “immediately” applying Supreme Court ruling

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Thomas J. Leney stated that the Department of Veterans Affairs “will comply immediately with the Court’s decision” in the Kingdomware case.

According to Leney, executive director of VA’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, the department is already addressing policy and operational changes, but also that procurement officials will proceed without undue delay on acquisitions in process but not yet awarded.

In his June 23rd testimony, Leney noted that VA’s previous policy regarding the use of the Rule of Two was supported in the lower courts. However, the Supreme Court decision “represents a correction of our understanding of the Veterans First mandate.”

As a result of the Vets First act, VA is the only agency required to first consider veteran-owned small businesses, including service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, in its procurement actions. Leney promised that VA would perform market research on all future competitive contracts to determine if there are two or more VOSBs likely to submit offers and able to perform the work at fair and reasonable prices.

The Court made it clear that the Vets First policy was “mandatory and must be applied to all competitive contract awards, including orders of the Federal Supply Schedules,” Leney stated. VA had operated as though that mandate did not apply to delivery orders under multiple-award schedule contracts, basing their reasoning on the schedules contract policy as implemented in the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

VA had also earlier raised the issue that set-asides were no longer necessary once the agency had met its annual small business goals. VA dropped this issue when the case was appealed to the higher court.

Not everyone is convinced of VA’s commitment to “immediately” implement the Court’s ruling, however. At the same hearing, Jon Williams, partner at PilieroMazza law firm, called the ruling “a fairly simple and straight-forward rebuke of the VA’s prior interpretations and the agency’s attempts to avoid application of the Vets First priority to FSS contacts.”

He went on to say that “A multi-year legal battle to avoid the Vets First mandate was not the example Congress intended the VA to set. Hopefully, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kingdomware will be the VA’s wakeup call.” He stated that the Vets First mandate has worked in accelerating achievement of VA’s VOSB goals, and that “VA should now reserve many more procurements for VOSBs.”

Another hearing panelist, Michael Phipps, noted that “the Kingdomware decision clearly reaffirms that service-disabled veteran-owned small business contracting goals are neither a public relation ploy nor an end in themselves. The goals do not exist for government departments to pat themselves on the back, issue press releases, and then ignore veterans once the goals are achieved.”

Phipps is owner of Millenium Group International, a SDVOSB firm, and chairman of the Advisory Committee on Veteran Business Affairs, an independent advisory board administered at the SBA.

More Information: Committee hearing webcast: http://goo.gl/l7ofW3
Leney testimony: http://goo.gl/Lf65CP
Williams testimony: http://goo.gl/mqwngr
Phipps testimony: http://goo.gl/BqzqrU

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