New SBA Head Stalling the Release of Latest Small Business Contracting Statistics

In late July, the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced it would release its official federal small business contracting statistics for Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 by the end of August. On August 25, 2008, attorneys representing the SBA told Federal District Court Judge Marilyn H. Patel that the SBA did not have any information on the volume of contracts awarded to small business or the specific names of the firms that received those contracts.

In court documents Patel stated, "The court finds curious the SBA's argument that it does not 'control' the very information it needs to carry out its duties and functions." (http://www.asbl.com/documents/20080925courtordermod.pdf)

Now, in his second week on the job, new Acting Administrator of the SBA Santanu "Sandy" Baruah appears to be refusing to release the Bush Administration's latest small business contracting statistics. This is the first time in the SBA's 55-year history the agency has delayed the release of the federal government's small business contracting statistics until this late in the year.

The federal government's fiscal year for 2007 ended on September 31, 2007. The SBA has now had more than eleven months to review the data and release it. Since the government's contracting information is in a real-time database, the information could have been released on October 1, 2007.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) believes that Acting Administrator Baruah is withholding the Bush Administration's small business contracting statistics to avoid an inevitable challenge to the accuracy of the information in the press during the Republican National Convention. The ASBL believes the latest Bush Administration small business data will include hundreds of Fortune 1000 firms as it has every year during Bush's tenure.

Since 2003, 15 federal investigations have all found wide spread abuses in federal small business contracting programs, such as the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. Some of the firms that have received small business contracts during the Bush Administration include: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Battelle, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, Titan Industries, Xerox, John Deere and British Aerospace and Engineering (BAE). (http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)

In response to the series of investigations and over 400 stories on the issue in mainstream-media outlets across the United States, the Bush Administration has responded by making it more and more difficult for the public and the media to determine the actual recipients of federal small business contracts. Bush officials have repeatedly refused Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the specific names of firms that received government small business contracts. In June of 2007, the SBA adopted a policy, which will allow Fortune 500 firms to continue to receive federal small business contracts until 2012.

On July 30, 2008, Bush officials adopted a policy, which no longer requires government contractors to state their annual revenue or their number of employees. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the public to determine if large businesses are misrepresenting themselves as a small businesses. (http://www.asbl.com/documents/20080903ccrchange.pdf)

The ASBL plans to request the 2007 small business contracting statistics under FOIA if the information is not released by the end of the week.

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Comments

[Chris Gunn - Huffpost Blogger]

There are several reasons as to why the Bush Administration and specifically Acting Administrator Baruah would withhold this information. The first is that they know the statistics are off. They did not hit the congressionally mandated 23 percent small business procurement goal. The second is that this information is going to look very bad for the Bush Administration given the fact that since 2003, there have been more than a dozen federal investigations, which have found fraud, abuse and loopholes in federal small business programs and nothing has been done to stop it. The third is that the Administration will use miscoding as a reason for the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations for the seventh strait year, and small business advocates like the American Small Business League are going to jump on it. Additionally, as recently as last week, an attorney for the Small Business Administration stated that they did not have documents indicating the actual recipients of federal small business contracts.

[seedyrum]

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

Bush Administration has done so many shady and unscrupulous dealings that I wouldnt be surprised if they were not "trying" to fix the report>

Sure its real time but which real time and whose the time keeper??? Bush put his cronies in place to "fix" the data>

There is so much the next new administration will have to cleanup and fix before the new administration can even begin to implement any changes>>

Paulsen rewriting "new regulations" for financial industry>>what was wrong with the old ones as they were NEVER used?? NEW regulkations are being written to CLOUD what was done by Bush ADMINISTRATION>

Bush needs McCAIN to win this election badly worse than badly to smudge all the malfeasance that Bush committed>>

McCain doesnt own his campaign as Rove and the lobbyists are in control and will be in control if McCain makes it to the White House>>

The world is watching

[jcorrington]

Having been a federal contract officer for 20 years, I know for a fact that sm bus info is real time.

Its just another repug inconvenient truth.

[pokethis]

Can you give me some insight as to why they would with hold this information? I don't get it.