Service-disabled veteran-owned businesses won 1.4% of prime contract dollars in fiscal 2008, still far short of the 3% goal, according to the market research firm Eagle Eye Publishers.

Only eight of 46 agencies surveyed reached the goal.

Spending with SDVs increased for the fifth straight year, to $6.9 billion.

The Veterans Affairs Department led the way among major agencies with 11% of its dollars going to SDVs. Defense remained under 1%.

One SDV company, Aegis MEP of Columbus, OH (now known as Mission Essential Personnel), received $200 million in prime contracts. It provides security, translators and other specialized staff.

MicroTech LLC, an IT contractor in Vienna, VA, topped $101 million.

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President Obama has signed a temporary two-month extension of the Small Business Innovation Research program amid signs that House and Senate negotiators are still deadlocked over the program’s future. The program was due to sunset July 31 without an extension.

The House and Senate have passed different versions of a reauthorization. The differences center on grants to companies controlled by large venture capital firms.

Senate Small Business Committee Chair Mary Landrieu, D-LA, said, “We have been working hard with the House of Representatives to reach a fair compromise that will reauthorize and strengthen the SBIR and STTR programs and that will guarantee thatthese programs remain for truly small businesses.”

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The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general says several officials created an appearance of impropriety in four separate procurements but did not violate ethics rules.

The report grew out of an investigation of DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, which awards R&D contracts and grants.

In two procurements in 2007, the IG found that “inappropriate communications” raised concerns that staff members were trying to direct funding to particular individuals and companies. “The problems were detected in time for S&T to modify and preserve the integrity of those two procurements,” the IG said.

In another 2007 case, the IG said a company obtained procurement-sensitive information. And in a fourth procurement, also in 2007, an official was serving on a source selection board when his former employer was competing for the contract. Department lawyers noticed the conflict and directed the official to recuse himself.

None of the individuals involved was named.

“The rules for communicating during the procurement process were established to prevent competitors from gaining an unfair advantage and ensure that the government reaps the benefits of competition, IG Richard Skinner wrote. S&T should train its staff in competitive procurement and ethical rules, and S&T management must model and enforce those rules.”