In addition, the government came up short on its goal for contracts let to women-owned businesses (5 percent of contracting dollars) and firms in traditionally underserved and underemployed areas (5 percent). Officials came up just shy of their subcontracting goal, too (33.60 percent went to small firms, short of the 36 percent target).

House Small Business Commitee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) called the government’s continued failure to meet “meager” small-business contracing goals “simply unacceptable.”

“The Administration must make meeting this goal a priority because it’s efficient governance, and not just a law that makes small businesses feel good,” Graves said in an email to The Washington Post. “Improving small business opportunities through federal contracts creates jobs and saves taxpayer money because small businesses bring competition, innovation and lower prices.”

There were a few bright spots in the report. Officials met their goal for businesses owned by service-disabled veterans (3 percent) for the first time ever, and a record-high number of agencies met their individual contracting goals.

“Federal contracting with small businesses remains a win-win,” SBA officials wrote in a blog post about the data, noting that the agency “made real progress” toward its goals last year. “Small businesses get the revenue they need to grow their revenues and create jobs. Meanwhile, the federal government gets the chance to work with some of the most responsive, innovative and nimble companies in the U.S.”

The 2012 numbers bring President Obama’s first-term small-business contracting total to $376.2 billion. SBA Officials noted that was slightly more than during the final term under President George W. Bush, even as recent government spending has declined.

Before the start of his second term, Obama signed legislation to encourage agency leaders to take their small business goals more seriously. Starting this year, these annual small business contracting reports will be part of reviews for senior agency officials, which factor into their consideration for bonuses and promotions.

The White House has also backed proposals to raise the annual small-business contracting goals, despite the government’s continued failure to meet current targets.

Under SBA Administrator Karen Mills, who announced her resignation earlier this year but has yet to leave her post, the agency has taken several steps to try to meet the government’s routinely missed small business procurement benchmarks.

Most recently, officials launched a program to recruit more contractors in economically disadvantaged areas and partnered with Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and American Express to educate women-owned firms about contracting opportunities.

Small business contracting has been a sore spot for the government dating back many years, and the struggles are not limited to missed procurement goals. A number of reports have suggested that a significant portion of the contracts SBA claims are delivered to small firms actually end up in the hands of large corporations.

Just last week, the chief executive of a large Arlington-based contractor was sentenced to four years in prison for creating what’s known as a “front” company to win more than $31 million in contracts reserved for small businesses. A week earlier, another former CEO of a security contractor, again in Arlington, was sentenced to six years in prison for illegally winning more than $150 million in contracts that had been set aside for small disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses.

In her latest semiannual report to Congress, SBA Inspector General Peggy Gustafson labeled small business contracting as the most serious challenge facing the agency.

“The agency faces a number of challenges in carrying out its mission, including fraudulent schemes affecting all SBA programs, significant losses from defaulted loans, procurement flaws that allow large firms to obtain small business awards, excessive improper payments, and outdated legacy information systems,” Gustafson wrote in her report, later highlighting several instances of large firms being awarded small-business status to apply for contracts.