Tag Archives: small business

Does the U.S. Department of Treasury Sound Like A Small Business To You?

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Story Update: Here’s his response:

Mr. Rosenfeld,

We have been able to find the error on the reporting for the subject Contract Award PIID. As I explained to you on the phone, the contract award was not made to the department of the treasury. The reason it is showing the department of treasury as the contractor is because the address field was populated with Treasury’s address when the contract award was made back in 2010. The DUNS number belongs to a Personal Services Contractor. His address information associated with the DUNS was entered incorrectly with the department of treasury’s address information instead of his own address.

This can only be corrected by the contractor himself. The contractor is out of the country at the moment returning on July 6. I have brought this to his attention and he will take action as soon as he comes back to the U.S.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Thank you and best regards.

Michael Tekle

Contracting Officer

Department of the Treasury, IRS

Office of Treasury Procurement Services(OS:A:P:T)

Voice: 202-283-6117

Fax: 202-283-6083

Email: michael.tekle@irs.gov

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The following is the letter that I sent to IRS contracting officer Michael Tekle on June 27, 2012, after inquiring about federal small business contracts that were awarded to the U.S. Department of Treasury.

To view one of the contracts in question, click here: USTreasuryContract_June_08_2011

From: Elliott Rosenfeld
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 1:45 PM
To: ‘michael.tekle@irs.gov’
Subject: Contract Award PIID: TMO10T036

Mr.Tekle,

I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I wanted to ask for further clarification regarding contract PIID: TMO10T036 and all modifications/contract actions associated. The reason I ask is because the U.S. Department of Treasury is listed as a vendor to the U.S. Department of Treasury. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Treasury was labelled as a “small business” under CO Business Size Determination.

You explained to me that D&B will populate the vendor name on a contract once you input a DUNS number. You also said that the Duns number is checked against ORCA. So, then, why is the U.S. Department of Treasury the vendor on this contract? Small business advocates are extremely dissapointed that the U.S. Department of Treasury has received over $600,000 as a small business contractor in the last month alone.

Please respond to my request for more information within 7 business days or notify me if this won’t be possible.

Thanks,

Elliott Rosenfeld

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Elliott Rosenfeld
Public Relations Director
American Small Business League
(707) 789 9575
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Sweden geospatial giant winning $millions in fed small biz contracts

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Today in federal contracting failure I want to shed light on a company named Erdas Inc. Experts in the geospatial industry, Erdas has been winning small business contracts since at least 2006, but has not been a small business since at least 2005 when they were purchased by Sweden geospatial giant Hexagon AB.  Moreover, Erdas has never registered with the federal government’s online representation database as a small business so in no way, shape or form should even the government’s least competent employee have screwed this one up.

Erdas has won millions in small business contracts since 2006 and so far in 2012, this large business has won $1.2 million. This comes after the New York Times quoted SBA spokesperson Hayley Meadvin, saying federal contracting data is as “clean as it an be.” Yet the SBA failed to realize that Erdas has been winning small business contracts for the past 6 years. Anyone that has followed the government wide 10-year-old contracting scandal knows “clean as can be” is an SBA talking point that they use so consistently that I imagine if you walked into the SBA press office you would catch them practicing the line in front of a mirror.