Report Finds $2 Billion In Federal Contracting Awards Miscoded

The SBA’s Office of Advocacy issued a report today which found that over $2 billion in federal contracting dollars has been miscoded as small business awards thereby skewing small business procurement statistics.  The study examined the top 1000 small business awards in 2002 and found that 44 of those companies were not small businesses.

Some of the most egregious awards that were mislabeled as small business was Titan Corp. with almost $540 million in small contracting awards and $1.1 billion in total awards, and Northrop Grumman Corp. with over $100 million in small business awards and over $12 billion in total awards. 

The Office of Advocacy cites many factors that led to the mislabeling.  These factors include erroneous assignment of codes, large firms acquiring small firms with existing small business awards, small firms outgrowing the definition of small firm, and incorrectly assigned parent company affiliations. 

For related posts please see my posts from 12/21, 12/12, 10/20, 10/7, 9/30