COMMITS Contractors Outgrow Size Standards The COMMITS NexGen governmentwide acquisition contract is set aside for small businesses, but the Government Accountability Office found many large businesses are winning awards under the contract. The Commerce Department awarded 55 contracts for COMMITS in January 2005. By April 2006, GAO said, 40% of them were no long eligible for small business status. Sixteen companies had outgrown small business size standards and six more had been acquired or merged with large contractors, GAO found. Those involved in acquisitions had not recertified their eligibility, as required by SBA regulations. Commerce Department officials said they would ask those firms to recertify. Officials said the department is following current regulations that require companies to recertify their size status every three years, or when contract options are exercised. SBA has proposed annual recertification, but no final rule has been issued. COMMITS operates under a unique tier structure, which allows similar-size contractors to compete against each other for task orders. But GAO said only about 30% of task orders had been set aside for the smallest tiers, and many of those orders went to larger businesses that were ineligible for those tiers. Incumbent contractors are allowed to compete for task orders designated for lower-tier competition, even if the incumbents have outgrown the tier. In addition, task orders are not assigned NAICS codes, making it possible for a company to win an order even though it exceeds the size standard for that category. Commerce Department officials said they are following common practice in not assigning NAICS codes to orders on GWACs. GAO said the effectiveness of the Commerce Department’s oversight of the contract is “unclear.” The formal name of COMMITS NexGen is Commerce Information Technology Solutions Next Generation. The contract has a ceiling of $8 billion over 10 years. The GAO report is GAO-06-791R.