Democrats Grade Agencies "D" on Procurement Democrats on the House Small Business Committee accused the Bush administration of inflating the amount of federal contracts awarded to small firms. The fifth annual Scorecard report prepared by the committee’s Democratic staff estimates that small businesses won 22.68% of federal prime contract dollars in fiscal 2003. SBA reported the figure was 23.6%, above the goal of 23% set by Congress. “While a shortfall of less than one percentage point may not appear significant, it translates into nearly $1 billion in lost contract opportunities,” the report said. SBA relied on GSA’s Federal Procurement Data System, the official source of contracting numbers. “FPDS has ceased to become a credible source for measuring small business participation in the federal marketplace,” said New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez, the committee’s senior Democrat. The Democrats said they gathered data from the individual agencies rather than from FPDS. Nine of the 22 largest agencies reported lower small-business awards than the FPDS figures. In some cases the differences were stark. FPDS reported the Agency for International Development awarded 26% of its contract dollars to small firms. Velazquez said AID’s own figures showed just 2.2% going to those firms. GSA has already hired a contractor to replace FPDS. The agency says the new system will produce more accurate figures, beginning with fiscal 2004. The Democrats gave the government an overall grade of “D” for its small business achievements, the lowest in the five years they have issued the Scorecard. In setting grades, the staff considers goal achievements as well as whether they believe individual agencies’ goals are set too high or too low. No agency was graded “A.” The departments of Agriculture and Interior each received a “B.” Seven agencies were marked “F:” Education, Justice, NASA, Energy, Homeland Security and AID.