Government agencies meeting their goals for awarding contracts to small businesses broke a record with $120 billion in awards in fiscal 2018, the Small Business Administration announced. Despite government agencies meeting their goal of 25% for the sixth straight year, qualified small-business procurement fell short in the subgroups of women-owned businesses and Historically Underutilized Business Zones, or HUBZones.
The overall government rating was an A. Eight agencies received an A+ on the annual scorecard, the SBA said. The $120 billion total marked an increase of $15 billion over last year.
According to Acting Administrator Chris Pilkerton, “The federal prime and subcontract awarded to small businesses in fiscal 2018 equate to more than one million jobs created.”
In prime contracting, agencies exceeded goals for service-disabled veteran-owned small business and small disadvantaged business, while contract dollar awards rose in all categories, the SBA said. In subcontracting, the federal government also exceeded its subcontract goals for awards to small businesses and women-owned small businesses, and awarded more than $79 billion in subcontracts.
As a sign that agencies value the scorecard, the Homeland Security Department put out a statement noting that for the 10th year in a row, it earned an A grade: “DHS has been the largest agency to consistently earn a grade of an ‘A’ or higher on SBA’s scorecard,” it said.
Gloria Larkin, president of the contractor TargetGov who is also the procurement advisor to American Express on educating women contractors, told Government Executive that women-owned businesses received $22.9 billion in prime contract awards but it is still under the five percent goal, at 4.75%.
