GSA to buyers: Don't forget small businesses

The General Services Administration wants federal supply schedule shoppers to place more orders with small businesses.

In a proposed rule announced in the Sept. 14 Federal Register, GSA proposed an amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation that the agency says will encourage federal buyers to include small businesses when they evaluate schedule products and place orders.

"The objective of the rule is to ensure that small business concerns have the maximum practicable opportunity to compete in Federal Supply Schedule acquisitions," GSA said.

Agencies bought $7.7 billion worth of goods and services off the supply schedules in 1998, using the schedules to buy everything from firefighting equipment to temporary help services to trophies. The schedules simplify procurement procedures by allowing agencies to avoid full-blown open market procurements.

But small businesses don't seem to be getting their share of supply schedule business. About 70 percent of the contractors on the schedules are small businesses, but only 33 percent of schedule sales went to small firms last year.

Starting this year, agencies are required to report the dollar value of orders placed on GSA's schedules to the Small Business Administration (SBA).

According to SBA, small business's share of federal procurement declined by roughly 10 percent from 1996 to 1998.

In a related change, GSA proposed to re-word another section of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to reaffirm that orders made on the supply schedules must comply with statutory and regulatory requirements.

The change follows a July 15 decision by Comptroller General David M. Walker that agencies must seek additional bidders for incidental products or services not listed on the federal supply schedules. Chip Mather, senior vice president of Acquisition Solutions Inc., a Chantilly, Va., consulting firm, said that many procurement professionals don't understand the proper procedures for placing orders for incidentals under the GSA schedules.