February 22. 2012 | Rebecca Kehoe

January 2012: Small Business Month

January 2012 appears to be Small Business Month.  On January 13, 2012 President Obama elevated the Small Business Administration (SBA) back to a cabinet level position and proposed combining six agencies and offices with the SBA into a single agency overseeing trade and business.  The six agencies and offices are:  Small Business Administration, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Export-Import Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency.  Take note that only SBA is cabinet level.  In addition, on January 31, 2012 two bills were introduced into Congress:  HR 3850 that provides disincentives for agencies that do not make their small business subcontracting goals by taking bonuses away from agencies officials and increases the government-wide small business contracting goal from 23 percent to 25 percent; and HR 3851 which elevates the position of the agencies’ Director of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Office (SADBU) to Senior Executive Service (SES).   On February 2, 2012, HR 3893 was introduced which would require stricter limitations on subcontracting by small businesses to large businesses under set aside programs and require executive agencies to solicit public comments on procedures with respect to decisions to covert a function being performed by a small business concern to performance by a Federal employee.  January 2012 was a very good month for Small Business.

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