Selling stuff to Uncle Sam is one way for small businesses to grow, but the General Services Administration has made this harder, according to the leaders of the House Small Business Committee.
Getting on GSA’s multiple-award schedules used to be a way for small businesses “to get their foot in the door for federal contracting,” Committee Chairman Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, and Rep. Nydia Velazquez wrote in a letter to GSA. But the agency now favors a “category management” approach that makes it harder for small businesses to win federal contracts, they contend.
Plus, many of the contracting vehicles now used by GSA “have bundled so many goods together in one contract that a lot of small businesses do not have the capabilities to bid for it, despite having previously provided some of the goods or services under the MAS contracts. As a result, the number of small firms serving as suppliers to the government in certain areas has gone from hundreds to just a few handfuls.”
This is not only bad for small businesses, it’s bad for the government, because less competition means higher prices, they argue. Plus it’s bad for the nation’s industrial base, because small businesses frozen out of category management vehicles may not be able to remain open.