A Senatechairman has asked the Small Business Administration to provide him with a listof every company that was counted toward the federal government's smallbusiness contracting goal in 2014.

Last year,the SBA reported the government had met its goal of awarding small businesses23 percent of all federal contracting dollars for the first time in eightyears.

"We'reexpecting even better results when we release the 2014 scorecard in the coming weeks,"SBA Administrator MariaContreras-Sweet said May 8, during a White House event honoringNational Small Business Week award winners.

But areport by Public Citizen questioned the accuracy of the SBA's procurementreport for 2013. It found that contracts awarded to giant federal contractorssuch as Lockheed Martin were counted as small businesses in the SBA's numbers.This is just the latest example of flawsin the SBA's contracting data though the years.

When itbecame clear that the SBA was planning to announce that the government exceededits goal in 2014, I asked the SBA to provide a list of all the federalcontractors that it counted as small businesses, so people could judge forthemselves whether its report is accurate.

Now Sen. DavidVitter, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate SmallBusiness and Entrepreneurship Committee, has asked for that information aswell.

"The SBAhas not done enough to show how it reaches its procurement figures," Vitterasked Tuesday in a letterto Contreras-Sweet. "Accordingly, I ask that you produce a clearlist of the names of every contractor that counted towards the small businessprocurement goal for FY 2014, the size of the contractor, and the amount of thecontract(s) awarded to that contractor."

Vitter,like many other small business advocates, is skeptical about the accuracy ofSBA's contracting goal reports.

"Serious flaws undoubtedly exist in calculating and accuratelyreporting the number of government contracts annually awarded to smallbusiness," he wrote Contreras-Sweet. "Simply ignoring the problem does nothingto help small business. Without transparency and accountability in the process,the numbers are meaningless. Drawing attention to them only hides thesignificant problems small businesses face in obtaining government contracts,and stifles efforts to reform the system."

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