July 13, 2003 WASHINGTON They are among America's larger companies: Verizon Communications, AT&T Wireless, Barnes & Noble booksellers and Dole Food. But in the government's contractor database, they are listed as small businesses.

The mistaken designations, contained in records obtained by the Associated Press, mean the government has overstated the contract dollars that are going to small business at a time when the Bush administration has been pressing to give smaller firms as much federal work as possible.

"The numbers are inflated," said David Drabkin, senior procurement officer for the General Services Administration. "We just don't know the extent."

Drabkin, whose agency maintains the records entered by contracting officials across the government, said that the GSA was working to ensure accurate entries in the future, but that past errors are "not something we can clean up overnight."

Once a company's status is mischaracterized, it stays that way through the life of a contract - which can be 20 years. That means smaller firms that the administration intended to help may be frozen out of fresh business by the bigger companies with the incorrect designations.

"This transition has led to the apparent diversion of contract dollars intended for small business," said Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Small Business Administration.

One small businessman who is pushing to have the listings corrected says workers are paying in lost jobs.

"Most Americans work for small businesses, and most of all the new jobs are created by small businesses. This certainly has a dramatic impact on job creation," said Lloyd Chapman, who formed the California-based Microcomputer Industry Suppliers Association.

The government defines a small business as one that is independently owned and operated and is not dominant in its field. Size standards change from one industry to another, based on either the number of employees or revenue.

Among the contractors designated as small businesses in the records obtained by the AP were:

Verizon Communications Inc., the largest local phone company in the nation, and Verizon Wireless, the company's joint venture that is the largest U.S. wireless provider.

Barnes & Noble Inc., the top U.S. bookseller, with superstores in 49 states and the District of Columbia, plus mall stores under different names.

AT&T Wireless, the cellular phone spin-off from AT&T.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which includes Sheraton, St. Regis and Westin hotels.

Dole Food Co. Inc., the world's largest producer of fresh fruits and vegetables.

KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root. KBR is one of the world's largest providers of oil field services and part of the company Vice President Cheney ran before taking office in 2001.

The Bush administration has set a goal of providing small business with 23 percent of all federal contracts, but it has fallen about 3 percentage points short after awarding $53 billion to small companies.

Officials now acknowledge that the percentage was inflated by the erroneous database entries and that the true amount of federal business that went to small firms was smaller.

Investigators from Congress' General Accounting Office found no evidence that large companies had tried to manipulate the designations found in the database. Rather, they blamed the mistakes on federal contracting officials who either entered wrong codes for business size or reentered outdated information.

Large companies said they never intended to be listed as small businesses.

AT&T Wireless spokeswoman Rochelle Cohen said the company was unaware that it was mischaracterized in the database.

The SBA said it had referred companies to the agency's inspector general whenever it suspected deliberate misrepresentation.

One company the SBA said it referred is GTSI Corp., of Chantilly, Va., a computer-equipment company.

Charles DeLeon, acting general counsel for the company, said the firm "has always provided the government with accurate and truthful information."

The company lost its designation as a small business in 1998, but DeLeon said it continued to provide information-technology products to the government under a contract that began when it was a small business.

Caption:
JENNIFER S. ALTMAN / Bloomberg News