The Federal Government Achieves Small Business Procurement Contracting Goal For The 4th Consecutive Year

Seven Federal Agencies Receive A+ Rating on Procurement Scorecard

Washington /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today that the federal government reached its small business federal contracting goal for the fourth consecutive year, awarding 24.34 percent in federal contract dollars to small businesses totaling $99.96 billion, an increase of over $9 billion from the previous year.

"I am pleased to report that for the fourth year in a row, the federal government has exceeded its small business contracting goal," Administrator Linda McMahon said. "It is a win-win for federal agencies to get small business contracts into the hands of the innovative small business owners that create jobs in their communities and help to fuel the nation's economy."

In FY 2016, the federal government also exceeded the Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) goal and had its highest achievement ever for percentage of contract dollars awarded to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned (SDVO) small businesses. Prime contract dollars in all categories increased. The prime contract goal achievements by dollars and percentages for all categories are as follows:

The federal government also exceeded its subcontract goals for awards to women-owned and small disadvantaged businesses.

SBA has worked with federal agencies to expand opportunities for small businesses to compete for and win federal contracts. The FY 2016 Small Business Procurement Scorecard that SBA uses to grade agencies in terms of prime contracting and subcontracting performance, as well as other factors, resulted in overall grade of "A " for the federal government. Seven agencies received A+, 11 received a grade of A, four received a grade of B and one agency received a grade of C.

About The Scorecard
The annual Scorecard is an assessment tool to (1) measure how well federal agencies reach their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals, (2) provide accurate and transparent contracting data and (3) report agency-specific progress. The prime and subcontracting component goals include goals for small businesses, small businesses owned by women, small disadvantaged businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and small businesses located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones).

Every year, the SBA works with each agency to set their prime and subcontracting goals and their grades are based on the agreed upon goals. Each federal agency has a different small business contracting goal, determined annually in consultation with SBA. SBA ensures that the sum total of all of the individual agency goals exceeds the 23 percent target established by law.

The individual agency scorecards released today by SBA, as well as a detailed explanation of the scorecard methodology, is available online: https://www.sba.gov/contracting/finding-government-customers/see-agency-small-business-scorecards.

While each federal agency is responsible for ensuring the quality of its own contracting data, SBA conducts additional analyses to help agencies identify potential data anomalies. As part of its ongoing data quality efforts, the SBA is working with federal agency procurement staff to provide tools to facilitate review of data, implement improvements to procurement systems and conduct training to improve accuracy.

The overall federal small business prime contracting performance released today by the SBA, as well as a detailed explanation of the calculations, is available online at http://go.usa.gov/Nxxd.