PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 4,2014) - The American Small Business League (ASBL) is announcing that they willbe challenging the accuracy of the Small Business Administration's (SBA's)FY2013 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard. The ASBL has issued a Freedom of Information Act requestto the SBA for the specific names of the firms that the SBA has included intheir 2013 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard. They believe the SBA has included billions of dollars in contractsto Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses in their FY2013 Scorecard.

On Friday, August 1 at 1:00p.m. newlyappointed SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet joined by NASA AdministratorCharles Bolden and Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md., announced the results ofthe 2013 Small Business FederalProcurement Scorecard at a press conference at NASA's Goddard SpaceFlight Center. The SBA claims they hit their goal for the first time in eightyears, awarding 23.39 percent in federal contracts to small businesses totaling$83.1 billion. The ASBL believes that small businesses got only one tenth ofwhat the SBA says they did and will be moving forward with inquiries on thatsubject.

The most recent information from theFederal Procurement Data System indicates that 175 Fortune 500 firms andtheir subsidiaries received federal small business contracts in FY 2013.

The ASBL believes the SBA hassignificantly misrepresented both the volume and the percentage of federalcontracts awarded to small businesses. Research by the ASBL indicates the SBAdramatically inflates small business contracting statistics in two major ways.

First, to inflate the percentage ofawards to small businesses the SBA uses a federal acquisition budget that issignificantly less than the actual total federal acquisition budget. Federallaw requires that a minimum of 23% of the total value of all federal contractsbe awarded to small businesses. Based upon the US Government Spending website,total federal spending for FY2013 was approximately $3.8 trillion. The SBAclaims the total federal acquisition budget for FY2013 was $355 billion.

A legal opinion from one ofthe nation's leading experts on federal contracting law, Professor CharlesTiefer, supports the ASBL's contention that the SBA uses a significantly lowernumber in calculating the percentage of awards to small businesses and that thereal federal acquisition budget should be closer to $1.1 trillion.

Second, to further inflate the volumeand percent of contracts awarded to small businesses the SBA includes billions of dollars in contracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousandsof other large businesses in their small business data. Professor Tiefer'slegal opinion found no federal law allowing large businesses to be consideredsmall businesses.

Every year of the ObamaAdministration, SBA Inspector General Peg Gustafson has named the diversion offederal small business contracts to large businesses as the number one problem at the agency.To date, no legislation or policies have been adopted to end the abuse.

To the contrary, the SBA is currently taking public comment ona new policy that will create a "safe harbor" for big businesses thathave fraudulently landed small business contracts.

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