CCR completes TPIN retirement: As of December 21, 2009, CCR has fully implemented the USER ID log-in replacing the former TPIN log-in that used to allow a registrant access to update their CCR registration.

Please refer to the CCR FAQ (www.ccr.gov) on the subject for more information.

If you need help with creating your user account, ID and password, please refer to the User Account Guide or call the Alaska PTAC.

SBA Press Release
Release Date: October 26, 2009 
Contact: Tiffani Clements (202) 401 0035
Release Number: 09-74 
Internet Address: http://www.sba.gov/news

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration is proposing increases in the size definitions for three broad commercial sectors.  The proposed increases cover size standards for 71 different types of businesses, two-thirds of them in retail trade sectors.  The rest are in accommodations and food services, and other services.

The changes, if adopted, will expand eligibility to small businesses and help them gain access to SBA’s financial assistance, contracting and other programs.
 
“SBA has undertaken a comprehensive review of our size standards to ensure they are current and reflect changes in the economy and the marketplace,” SBA Administrator Karen Mills said. “SBA’s lending and government contracting programs provide effective opportunities for small businesses to help them expand and create jobs, especially during these tough economic times. This review and proposed changes will help make these critical programs available to more small businesses and ensure SBA is in a position to be a real partner in helping our nation’s entrepreneurs and small business owners succeed.”

SBA recognizes that in some industries, existing size standards have been affected by changes in industry structure, market conditions and business models.  SBA is therefore conducting a comprehensive review of all its small business size standards, and these three proposed rules are the first in the series.  SBA is examining every industry to ensure that existing size standards are based on current economic data and SBA will propose to revise those where it believes it is necessary.   The newly proposed rules give the public an opportunity to review and comment on SBA’s proposed standards as well as on the data and methodology that SBA uses to evaluate and revise size standards.

Before this comprehensive review, the last overall review of size standards occurred more than 25 years ago.  Since then, most reviews of size standards have been limited to in-depth analyses of specific industries requested by the public and federal agencies.   The SBA also makes periodic inflation adjustments to its dollar-denominated size standards.  The latest inflation adjustment to size standards was published in the Federal Register on July 18, 2008.

Comments can be submitted on this proposed rule on or before Dec. 21, 2009, to www.regulations.gov, where they will be posted, or mailed to Khem R. Sharma, chief, Size Standards Division, 409 3rd St. SW, Mail Code 6530, Washington, DC  20416, or via e-mail at: sizestandards@sba.gov.  For more information about SBA’s revisions to its small business size standards, visit http://www.sba.gov/size and click on “What’s New.”

This message is for contractors awarded Federal contracts funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, i.e. the recovery Act.

All Recovery Act contractors are required to report at FederalReporting.gov (www.federalreporting.gov). The first reporting period begins on Thursday, October 1, 2009 and end Saturday, October 10, 2009.
Register now at www.federalreporting.gov to avoid delays!

E-Verify is in effect. See article below for details and status. Also see a link to FAQs on e-Verify:

Disputed E-Verify rules go into effect by Chris Strohm, Congress Daily. A coalition of business groups continued to wage a legal battle today as a government mandate took effect requiring federal contractors to verify the immigration status of employees working on government projects.
Full story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090908_5037.php?oref=rss?zone=NGtoday

To view FAQs about this ruling, go to: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4ee4be0cbcf90110VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD

Click on the News title to view a User Manual for Federal Contractors.

WASHINGTON – Entrepreneurs can take advantage of new, free online training and other resources offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration to assist them during this period of economic recovery.
The SBA offers a variety of online courses to assist small businesses in more effectively managing their firms in the current economy. 

The new course topics, available directly at www.sba.gov/services/training/onlinecourses, include revising business plans to reposition with current conditions, winning customers in a slowing economy, restructuring existing debt, and diversifying your customer base with federal contracts. 

The most recently added course is “Downshifting in a Slowing Economy: A Business Planning Guide.”  This course is designed to help business owners reorganize and streamline their business strategies.  Other related business tools include a new automated business plan template, and an assessment and strategies guide for surviving in a slowing economy.

“The SBA is helping small businesses with the resources and tools they need in the current business cycle,” said Jeff Andrade, Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development.  “In addition, SBA offers a variety of resources and referrals to small businesses uncertain about what to do in the current economy on its Web page on Economic Recovery at www.sba.gov/helpingmainstreet.”

Each free course is self-paced, and provides practical guidance on how to stay on top of economic conditions. These and other courses can be accessed from the SBA’s Web site at www.sba.gov/training. To access them, click on “Free Online Courses,” then make a selection under the header “Surviving in a Down Economy.”

The SBA can also help to find local agency offices and lenders.  Business owners can: talk with an SBA representative about financing options and identify local, participating SBA lenders; learn about SBA’s Loan Guaranty Program using an electronic guide with audio and many targeted links; and train with expert counseling and mentoring services by talking with an SBA representative or resource partner about management assistance.

By Elizabeth Newell, January 13, 2009
 
The Small Business Administration has become one of the first agencies to explore whether a recent court ruling striking down the legality of the Defense Department's small disadvantaged business program has broader ramifications.

SBA announced on Monday that it was reopening the comment period for the long-delayed women's contracting program and extending it for 60 days, partially in light of the ruling. The extension will allow stakeholders additional time to submit formal comments on a September 2008 revised plan to declare women-owned small businesses under-represented in 31 industries and allow set-aside contracts for women-owned firms in those industries.

SBA said that by granting the extension it was acquiescing to requests from Congress and members of the public, and noted that agency officials were assessing the November U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's Rothe Development Corp. v. Department of Defense decision and its potential relevance to the women's program.
"SBA is reviewing -- with the Department of Justice -- the relevance of the disparity study standard discussed in the recent [decision]," SBA acting Administrator Sandy Baruah said. "The Rothe decision, issued on Nov. 4, 2008, addressed the standards necessary to support the constitutional validity of certain contracting preference programs."
 
The Rothe case specifically dealt with Defense's small disadvantaged business program, which allowed for price adjustments to achieve the goal of awarding 5 percent of the department's contracting dollars to small businesses owned by certain minority groups.
Legal experts disagree on the potential significance Rothe could have for other preference programs, particularly those that are not race-based. In the past, the Supreme Court has applied different levels of legal scrutiny to affirmative action programs that are race-based than to those that are gender-based. But that doesn't mean the ruling won't set a broader precedent.

 "The rationale the court used to strike down [the Defense small disadvantaged business program] as unconstitutional could certainly be used for other small business preference categories that Congress has carved out," said Robert Burton, former deputy administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's procurement policy unit and now a partner at the Washington law firm Venable. "Women-owned would certainly be one that could be reviewed under the strict scrutiny rationale the court used in this case."
In the decision, the circuit court judge stated, "Congress did not have a 'strong basis of evidence' upon which to conclude that DoD was a passive participant in pervasive, nationwide racial discrimination -- at least not on the evidence produced by DoD -- and relied on by the district court in this case." It was the lack of evidence that caused the program to fail strict scrutiny.
 
Joe Hornyak, a partner in Holland & Knight's government contracts group, said the type of disparity study SBA used to determine the industries in which women-owned business were underrepresented was significantly more detailed than what Defense presented to justify its small disadvantaged business program.
For the women's program, "they did look at disparity on an industry by industry, [North American Industry Classification System] code by NAICS code basis," Horynak said. "I think one of the problems the court had in the Rothe case was that they said you've looked at one state, two counties and three cities and assumed on a nationwide basis all minority groups are underrepresented. There wasn't that narrow tailoring of what industries, what geographic areas are affected."

 While the extensive disparity studies might ensure the women's program, when implemented, could withstand constitutional challenges, women's business advocates said such studies err too far on the side of caution.

 "Our position on the SBA's regulation is that it went well beyond what would be required to justify either a race-based program or a gender-based program," said Jocelyn Samuels, vice president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center. "There is a difference in legal standards applied by the Supreme Court to evaluate the lawfulness of each of these types of program and the SBA's regulation went beyond what the Supreme Court has described as strict scrutiny, which applies to race-based programs."
Gender-based programs currently are subject to a slightly less intensive level of constitutional examination called heightened scrutiny.
"There may be circumstances in which gender programs are lawful [and] in which race-based programs might not be under these standards," Samuels said. "To suggest that women's programs can only be justified under the terms of strict scrutiny is a mischaracterization of the law and indicative of the current administration's hostility toward affirmative action."

 Any major changes to small business programs as a result of the ruling are likely to be implemented by the next administration. Samuels said she is optimistic the Obama team will free the women's program from regulatory gridlock.
 
The president-elect sent a letter to SBA in the spring, Samuels said, stating that the regulations limiting the number of industries in which the set-aside could be applied "went far beyond what was necessary to ensure it complied with constitutional standards to the detriment of the program and women-owned businesses."

Check out past newsletters from June 2008 and earlier. Also See: Procurement Connection Archives

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