Spending bills, CR or shutdown on Nov. 21?

      Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Richard Shelby, R-AL, predicts Congress will pass another continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown on Nov. 21 when the current stopgap spending bill expires.

      The second CR would maintain spending until February or March 2020. The Senate is very unlikely to complete work on fiscal 2020 appropriations bills by Nov. 21, Shelby said.

2020 Tech priorities

      Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent outlined fiscal 2020 technology priorities at a recent ACT-IAC event.

      According to a Nextgov report, those priorities include greater sharing of the government’s financial management and geospatial data to support artificial intelligence and other automated technologies, improving cybersecurity and supply chains and utilizing software-as-a-service.

Read the NextGov story at:
https://bit.ly/2qUCLP8

CGP prez: Buy American, non-manufacturer and Trade Agreements Act rules could hit small business set-asides

      In some circumstances, the interplay between small business procurement rules, Buy American Act (BAA), and Trade Agreements Act (TAA) could negatively affect domestic manufacturers, including small manufacturers, warns Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement in a recent blog.

      The end result could be the government buying more products from non-designated countries that subsidize low prices, such as China, Waldron wrote.

      This “could open up small business set-asides to products made in China that would otherwise be ineligible for purchase if the TAA applied,” Waldron wrote, saying more guidance is needed from Congress.

Read more at:
CGP blog: https://bit.ly/2MUVMJG

LPTA final rule

      The Defense Dept.’s final rule limiting the use of LPTA procurements went into effect on Oct. 1. The rule “significant restricts DOD’s ability to favor low-cost options over technical superiority,” says the Georgia Tech PTAC.

Georgia Tech PTAC blog:
https://bit.ly/2MUpdvw

Inside this Edition:

Will SBA abandon its $27M Certify.sba.gov site? Possibly.

Court favors VA in vet case

Velazquez calls SBA unresponsive

Scrutiny for Trumps in contract

SBA short on ANC 8(a) oversight

Minimum wage to rise to $10.80

Column: Financially Analyzing Your Company

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