Why Are Small Federal VARs Up In Arms?

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Why Are Small Federal VARs Up In Arms?

By Sarah Kuranda
Computer Reseller News
October 31, 2014

WhyAre Small Federal VARs Up In Arms?

Small-BusinessCutoff Lowered

In anutshell, the Footnote 18 exception of the North American IndustryClassification System (NAICS) Code 541419 sets the definition of a small VAR as150 employees or fewer. If the footnote is removed, as the Small BusinessAdministration (SBA) is proposing, a small VAR could only be defined as having$27.5 million in revenue or less, the alternative option also allowed in theexception. The SBA told CRN that the rule change would help simplify andprovide consistencies in the federal contracting process.

WhyAre VARs Upset?

Smallfederal VARs say that removing the footnote exception setting a small businessas 150 employees or less would lose them millions, and some are saying it willput them out of business. The reason, they told CRN, is that losing theirsmall-business classification would mean they would be competing head-to-headfor federal contracts with industry giants such as CDW, Hewlett-Packard andIBM. Some VARs pointed out that big business also could lose, as they oftenpartner with smaller VARs to gain contract wins.

ThisIsn't The First Time

Thisisn't the first time that the exception has been under fire. In 2002, when theemployee cutoff was 100 for IT VARs, the SBA proposed changing the sizestandard to 500 employees. That change was shot down in December 2003 and acompromise size standard of 150 employees was put in place under NAICS Code541519. The revenue size standard has also been on the rise, starting at $19million, rising to $25 million in 2011 and finally $27.5 million in June ofthis year.

Why IsThis Rule Here In The First Place?

"SBA'ssize standards and program eligibility requirements do not specifically addressthe classification of federal contracts that combine services with theacquisition of supplies. As a result, federal agencies have had difficultyusing small business preference programs for these types of contracts,especially for IT," the SBA said in 2002.

ShowMe The Numbers

Thepossible removal of the exception is based on the most recent 2007 census data,which SBA representatives said showed that the exception was no longernecessary as most of the companies between 45 and 150 employees would stillqualify as a small business under the new revenue cutoff. However, VARs saidthat they think it will have drastic effects on federal contracts. LloydChapman, president of the American Small Business League, estimates that thetypical federal reseller makes between $2 million and $3 million in revenue peremployee, instead of the $140,000 in revenue the rule change would suggest.

Toview full article, click here: http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/300074658/why-are-small-federal-vars-up-in-arms.htm

 


Federal VARs Fighting Back

News

Federal VARs Fighting Back

By Sarah Kuranda
Computer Reseller News
October 31, 2014

TheSmall Business Administration is looking at removing a footnote from the NorthAmerican Industry Classification System's Code 541519 exception for ITresellers competing for federal contracts that designates a small business as150 employees or fewer. Instead, a small business would be classified as $27.5million in revenue or less, a cutoff that is currently part of the code but isan alternative to the 150-employee limit. The change would help simplify andprovide consistency in the codes, according to SBA officials.

SmallVARs that CRN spoke with said that, if the change goes through, they expect tolose millions and potentially even go out of business as the new cutoff wouldpit them directly against giant companies such as CDW, Hewlett-Packard and IBMin the federal space. Right now, VARs with fewer than 150 employees getbenefits as small businesses that allow them to compete better for contracts.

Tofight to keep the 150-employee cutoff exception in place, federal VARs arestepping up on a variety of fronts.

Acoalition of small VARs called the Value Added Reseller Consortium (VARC)launched a petition to save the footnote. The petition outlines how removingthe footnote would force small VARs to compete directly against largecompanies, including those on the Fortune 500, and will cause many smallbusinesses to close and employees to lose their jobs. The group needs to get100,000 signatures in less than 30 days to elicit a response from the WhiteHouse.

"Manyof these small VARs have outgrown that revenue standard threshold and, withoutenjoying the 150-employee size standard, many of these small VARs are going tobe put out of business," said Jim Fontana, partner at Dempsey Fontana, theReston, Va.-based law firm that helped create the consortium. "Theconsensus among even more than the 13 [in the consortium] is that it would puta great many of them at a severe competitive disadvantage by having to relyonly on the revenue-based size standard."

Thesame group also has launched a letter-writing campaign and #SaveFootnote18Twitter hashtag to Congress to help spread the word of how they think removingthe exception would affect small businesses. At the time of publication, theyhad already sent more than 285 letters to members of Congress.

VARssaid they are also sending their comments directly to the government about theproposed regulation change. Comments on the 541519 rule are being accepteduntil Nov. 10.

If theexception were removed, groups such as the American Small Business League(ASBL), an advocacy group for small businesses that has been fighting hard tokeep the exception in place, plans to file an injunction, ASBL President LloydChapman told CRN.

Thegroup has to wait until the final rule is issued to file the injunction, butChapman said that the group is already planning just in case. He said that theinjunction will be based on a number of factors, in particular the SBA'sassertion that VARs won't be affected because 150 employees is essentiallyequivalent to $27.5 million in revenue. However, Chapman said that in thefederal space VARs usually do around $2 million to $3 million in revenue peremployee, making that estimate fall short.

"Ifyou made $27.5 million in revenue and had 150 employees, you wouldn't last 15minutes," Chapman said. "That's sort of the heart of the whole thinghere."

TheSBA told CRN that it was using the most up-to-date data from the 2007 censusand didn't believe changing the rule would affect small businesses, though itsaid it had no data to show how many businesses were using the exception.

CarlyGoldstein, vice president at Santa Fe, N.M.-based Wildflower International,said that she thinks the federal government would change its mind on removingthe exception if it truly understood the impact and based its decisions on realdata.

"Thisclaim of theirs that is backed up by nothing. We, as a group, our data iscurrent. I know what it costs to run a small business. There are companies likeours that do this small thing really, really well all over the government andthat is important data," Goldstein said.

Toview full article, click here: http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300074655/federal-vars-fighting-back.htm:

 


SBA Spokesman Terry Sutherland MIA In Whirlwind Of Controversy

Press Release

SBA Spokesman Terry Sutherland MIA In Whirlwind Of Controversy

ASBL questions whereabouts of SBA Press Office Director Terry Sutherland

By Lloyd Chapman
American Small Business League
October 30, 2014

PETALUMA, Calif., Oct. 30, 2014/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In recent weeks, the Small Business Administration(SBA) has faced mounting evidence that they have intentionally fabricated thenumbers in various programs designed to help small businesses.

Strangely, SBA Press Office Director TerrySutherland has been missing in action from the mediacoverage on the various controversies. Sutherland has opted out of allinterviews with journalists on every investigation and accusations from themedia that the SBA has fabricated data in virtually every small businessprogram.

On Friday August 1, 2014, SBA Administrator Contreras-Sweetannounced the Obama Administration had awarded 23.39 percent of all federalcontracts to small businesses. Almost immediately, informationbegan to surface that the SBA data had been fabricated and the SBA had included billions of dollars in federal contracts awardedto Fortune 500 firms in their small business contracting data.

On Sept. 10, AdministratorContreras-Sweet was lambasted by members of the House Small Business Committeefor diverting small business contracts to firms like Lockheed Martin, NorthropGrumman, Raytheon and Chevron.

In September, the SBA Inspector General released Report 14-18 that revealed billions of dollars in contracts that should havegone to Small Disadvantaged Businesses participating in the 8(a) and HUBZoneprograms had actually been awarded to ineligible firms that no longer qualified for the programsand the SBA had knowingly inflated the achievements in those programs.Sutherland was conspicuously absent from any media reports on the abuses.

In August, the SBA received a great deal of criticism for proposing a "safe harbor from fraud" for large businessesthat committed felony federal contracting fraud to hijack federal small businesscontracts. Again Sutherland declined to be interviewed on the controversy andrefused to make any statements.

The SBA received considerable criticism for dramatically increasing smallbusiness size standards in a wide range of industries that allowed many of thelargest firms in those areas to suddenly qualify as small businesses for the purposes offederal contracting. The Washington Post published a story on the issue titled,"How 8,500 large companies will become small businessesovernight." Sutherland declined to be interviewed for the story.

In the most recent controversy, the SBA has proposed policies to allow even more large businesses to compete for federalsmall business contracts. In one specific example the SBA has proposed toeliminate the 150-employee small business size standard for smallbusinesses that provides IT products to the federal government.

The new SBA size standard for Information Technology Value AddedResellers would increase up to 500 employees even though the averageinformation technology (IT) small business has less than 20 employees. Onceagain, Terry Sutherland has refused to comment onany of the stories on the controversial new policy.

In the most recent GAO investigation on the SBA, GAO-14-760Report said that, "the SBA failed to meet its deadline to process smallbusiness loan applications for small companies that were left destroyed in theHurricane's wake." Sutherland has refused to comment on the GAOinvestigation.

To view full press release, click here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sba-spokesman-terry-sutherland-mia-in-whirlwind-of-controversy-280901292.html

 


Proposed changes to SBA rules could cripple small biz value-added resellers

News

Proposed changes to SBA rules could cripple small biz value-added resellers

By Mark Hoover
Washington Technology
October 23, 2014

Proposed changes to Small Business Administration rules could have a negative effect onInformation Technology Value-Added Resellers, taking away anexemption that these businesses have and qualifying them as large businesses ifthey have more than $27.5 million in annual sales, according to FCW.

Small Business League president Lloyd Chapman was quoted assaying that the proposed changes would nearly bankrupt 90 percent of ITvalue-added resellers that have 150 or fewer employees, FCW reported.

The changes were proposed as part of a larger effort on behalfof the administration to consolidate the Small Business Administration into theCommerce and Labor Departments in order to streamline government operations,FCW said.

To view full article, click here: http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2014/10/23/agg-small-biz-changes.aspx

 


New Government Policies Could Wipe Out Small Business Programs

Press Release

New Government Policies Could Wipe Out Small Business Programs

ASBL Prepares To File Injunction To Stop Anti-Small Business Policies

By Lloyd Chapman
American Small Business League
October 23, 2014

PETALUMA, Calif., Oct. 23, 2014/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The government has been adopting sweeping changes infederal small business programs that could be devastating for the millions ofAmericans that are employed by the nation's 28 million small businesses.

An article in the Washington Post titled, "How 8,500 large companies will become small businessesovernight," reported on the changes.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 98percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees and 89 percent have lessthan 20. Those 28 million small businesses are responsible for over 50 percentof the GDP, over 50 percent of the private sector work force and over 90percent of U.S. exporters.

The Small Business Administration has been adopting new smallbusiness size standards that have allowed many of the largest firms in a widevariety of industries to be redefined as small businesses. These new changeswill make it much more difficult for legitimate small businesses to compete forover $100 billion a year in government smallbusiness contracts.

One of the SBA's proposed changes that is drawing the most criticisminvolves thousands of small businesses that provide information technology (IT)products to the federal government and government prime contractors. Over 95percent of small businesses that provide IT products to the federal governmentfall under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541519,titled Information Technology Value Added Reseller. The current small businesssize standard for NAICS code is 150 employees or less.

If the new SBA size standard is adopted, any small businessoperating under NAICS code 541519 will lose their small business status and be reclassified as a large business if their annual salesexceed $27.5 million.

Federal investigators and investigative reports in the mediahave all found that the SBA awards billions of dollars in federal contracts toFortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries as small business contracts. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News,and RTTVhave also reported on the fraud in SBA managed programs.

If the new SBA policy is adopted, federal contracts to a small IT business with annual sales in excess of $27.5 million would be reported as large businesscontracts, while some firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics,Northrop Grumman and Raytheon would be reported as small business contracts.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) has launched a nationalcampaign to work with small businesses in the IT industry to oppose the SBA policiesthat will harm legitimate small businesses. ASBL attorneys are preparing tofile an injunction to block the implementation of any changes to NAICS code541519 after the SBA has adopted the final rule.

The SBA will be taking public comment on their proposed policy changes until November10, 2014.

Take a look at ASBL's new documentarytrailer.

To view full press release, click here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-government-policies-could-wipe-out-small-business-programs-880978588.html