In continuation to the post on Monday.
Many states currently have regulations that require yearly proof as to how many employees a company has in order to be considered a small business. These same guidelines should be applied at the SBA, but aren’t. The question is….If individual states can accomplish this task each year, than why can’t the SBA do it now? Why do small businesses have to wait 4+ more years in order to receive a proper accounting of services that are supposed to be allocated to them?
There have been three federal investigations that have found fraud as one of the reasons why big businesses are getting small business contracts. One of these investigations was from the SBA’s own Inspector General.
If companies reported their size annually to the SBA, they would see how many of those companies are actually applying for contracts that should be given to small businesses. The SBA would then be forced to allocate the 23% of contracts that they are supposed to allocate, to actual small businesses.
Some business owners are reporting that the SBA is more of an obstacle than an advocate for small businesses. Small business owners should be asking themselves if there is something underhanded going on or are people just not doing their jobs properly. There are obvious flaws in the contract monitoring programs at the SBA, and it does not appear that the government officials care to make the needed changes…at least not very quickly. With 98% of all US firms having 100 employees or less, that is quite a few small businesses that are being left in the dust.
