Small business should feel first pains of sequestration
Small businesses will likely be the first to feel sequestration's pain, military acquisition officials say as budget planning enters a "purgatory of sorts."
Military officials are warning that small businesses may feel the first effects of sequestration as the services cut their operations and management budgets.
FCW is reporting that Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, an Air Force acquisition official told Congress that sequestration will cascade down through primes and subs.
He also warned of the effects of the continuing resolution, set to expire later in March.
"The absence of a final fiscal 2013 appropriations bill thrusts each military service into a planning purgatory of sorts, clouding near- and long-term fiscal programming with a fog of ambiguity," he told the House Armed Services Committee's Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
Large businesses have the resources to weather sequestration but small firms do not, Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition told the panel.
In other sequestration news, the Office of Management and Budget’s Danny Werfel sent a memo to agency heads with updated guidance on how to handle cuts, FCW reported.
He said agencies can expect more scrutiny of spending on funds from sequestered accounts particularly for new hires, awards to staff and new obligations for training, conferences and travel.
Werfel said agencies should try to ensure that contract actions are "cost-effective and minimize negative impact on the agency's mission to the extent practicable." Overall, agencies should consider new contracts only when they support high-priority efforts, he added.
FCW also offers an agency by agency breakdown of sequestration's impact.