PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 31,2014) - In a statement released on July 30, theSmall Business Administration (SBA) has announced they are finally going torelease their fiscal year 2013 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard, asconfirmed by the American Small Business League. The Scorecard will report onthe specific dollar volume and the percentage of federal contracts awarded tosmall businesses.

New SBA Administrator MariaContreras-Sweet will release the data in a press conference at NASA GoddardSpace Flight Center with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Senator BenCardin, D-Md.

A series of federal investigations and investigative reports have found the SBAcontinues to include billions of dollars in federalcontracts to Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other largebusinesses in their small business contracting statistics.

Federal law requires that a minimum of23% of the total value of all federal contracts be awarded to small businesses.In calculating the percentage of federal contracts to small businesses, forover 12 years, the SBA has significantly inflated thatpercentage by using a federal acquisition budget number that is muchsmaller than the actual federal acquisition budget required by law.

The American Small Business League(ASBL) estimates that if the SBA did not include billions of dollars in federal contracts toFortune 500 firms and thousands of large businesses and used the actual total federal acquisition budgetrequired by law, the percentage of federal contracts awarded to smallbusinesses would be closer to five percent than the 22% to 23% number that willbe reported in their Scorecard.

A legal opinion issued byProfessor Charles Tiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federalcontracting law, agrees with the findings of the ASBL that the SBA's numbersare dramatically inflated. Professor Tiefer found no legal justification forthe SBA's inclusion of contracts to large businesses in their small businesscontracting data. He also found that the actual total federal acquisitionbudget is closer to one trillion dollars versus the much smaller number used bythe SBA.

According to the latest data from theFederal Procurement Data System, 175 Fortune 500 firms andtheir subsidiaries received federal small business contracts in fiscal year2013.

Beginning in 2005 the SBA Inspector General referred to thediversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as, "One of the most importantchallenges facing the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the entireFederal Government today..."

Every year since 2003 the SBA hasclaimed that the inclusion of billions of dollars in federal contracts toFortune 500 firms and thousands of large businesses in their small businesscontracting data is the result of miscoding, computer glitches, anomalies and simple humanerror.

This consistent claim by the SBA seemsimprobable since fiscal year 2013 ended last September and the SBA has had 10months to review the data to remove any anomalies or miscoding.

To view full press release, clickhere: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/Small-Business-Administration-Finally-Releases-2013-Contracting-Data-1934620.htm