IG Faults SBA's Enforcement of Bundling Rules The Small Business Administration has reviewed only 13% of reported bundled contracts over the past four years and has failed to comply fully with the Bush administration’s anti-bundling policies and regulations, according to a report by the SBA inspector general. The IG found that federal agencies reported 220 possible bundled contracts from fiscal 2001 through 2004, but SBA reviewed only 28 of them. Regulations require agencies to report bundled contracts to SBA, the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Procurement Data System, but the auditors said agencies did not always do that. Auditors said the 192 contracts not reviewed by SBA were worth at least $384 million. The IG also found: *SBA has not created a database of bundled contracts, as required by law since 2000. The agency said much of the information needed for the database is not available. *SBA has not published a “best practices guide for maximizing small business opportunities,” as President Bush directed in his 2002 small business agenda. In a May letter to the IG, SBA’S associate deputy administrator for government contracting and business development, Allegra McCullough, said the guide would be available within 30 days, but a spokeswoman says it has not yet been published. *Several agencies and SBA procurement center representatives said they have no operating plans for carrying out the anti-bundling strategy, as required by SBA’s standard operating procedures. “As a result, SBA did not know the extent that bundling may be negatively impacting small business participation in government contracting,” the IG said. President Bush promised in a March 2002 speech that, wherever possible, his administration would “break down large federal contracts so that small business owners have got a fair shot at federal contracting.” The administration adopted new rules the following year to carry out the policy. The rules rely heavily on agency’s offices of small and disadvantaged business utilization and SBA’s procurement center representatives to serve as watchdogs over unjustified bundling. But critics have said those offices lack resources to monitor bundled contracts. The IG pointed out that SBA employs only 43 procurement center representatives to cover about 2,250 contracting offices. “This is just the latest example of the Bush administration shortchanging small businesses,” said Sen. John Kerry (MA), ranking Democrat on the Senate Small business Committee. “The administration is quick to make claims about supporting small contractors, but time and again their big business policies leave small businesses behind. Bottom line, the Administration would rather do business with large companies than keep faith with America’s small businesses.” SBA officials told the IG that they have improved monitoring of agency OSDBUs and procurement offices. The IG report, number 5-20, is available at www.sba.gov/ig/audits.html.