SBA Unveils Streamlined Procurement Program

In a move they claim will put federal contracting dollars into the pockets of the nation’s small businesses more quickly, Small Business Administration officials on Wednesday unveiled a streamlining of the agency’s largest program to aid minority firms.

The SBA is going to abdicate its role as a middleman in its controversial 8(a) program, which urges federal agencies to buy goods and services from minority- and women-owned businesses. These firms will work directly with procurement officials at 25 federal agencies, without the SBA serving as the prime contractor and intermediary. In fiscal 1997, the program accounted for $6.4 billion in federal contracting dollars, or nearly 3.5% of overall federal procurement.

SBA officials say the change was necessary to cut red tape and get 8(a) up to speed with the streamlining that’s rapidly changing federal purchasing procedures. A pilot program launched last year with the Transportation Department reduced average 8(a) contract approval time from several weeks to about five days, according to SBA officials.

“By getting out of the way, [SBA] is going to be much more effective by making it easier . . . for federal agencies to do business with 8(a) contractors,” said Aida Alvarez, the SBA’s top official in Washington. “It’s going to save time and money for the agencies and small businesses involved.”

Alvarez says the reconfiguration also will benefit the SBA, by allowing the agency to free up 60 contracting officers to provide training, technical assistance and other help to small businesses. She also stressed that the SBA will continue its certification, monitoring and advocacy activities to ensure that federal agencies continue to funnel business to 8(a) contractors.

Named for the section of the Small Business Act that created it, the SBA’s 8(a) program was established in the late 1960s to help “socially and economically disadvantaged” entrepreneurs get a leg up in the business world. Nearly 6,200 small businesses are certified as 8(a) contractors, 672 of which are in California.

The most controversial portion of the program calls for a percentage of government contracts to be earmarked for 8(a) firms. Critics have called these contracts “set-asides,” which reward race or ethnicity rather than business acumen. SBA officials say they are merely “goals” that give worthy minority firms a chance to prove what they can do.

Nevertheless, the SBA last year announced revisions to the 8(a) program that will make it easier for white women to win a piece of the contracting pie. Some observers viewed that as an attempt to win more supporters for the program in an era of affirmative action backlash.

Adele Miranda, a Santa Maria, Calif.-based 8(a) contractor, says she supports the streamlining and isn’t concerned that the SBA will no longer be the middleman for her landscaping contracts with the Defense Department.

“The program is all about getting small businesses into the mainstream,” said Miranda, co-owner of Miranda’s Landscape Maintenance.

“Contractors are going to have to learn how to manage and function on their own. They can’t be running to the SBA for everything.”