SBA drops companies from top small-biz list

The Small Business Administration's list of the Top 100 small businesses in 2007 reflects new size standard policies and a 14-month effort to scrub improperly listed businesses from the small-business database.

As a result of policy changes on how often companies must recertify their size standards, 26 of the small businesses listed on the 2006 Top 100 do not appear on the 2007 list. Sixteen of the firms had simply outgrown their small status, and 10 more had been acquired by larger companies, according to SBA.

The rankings reflect the amount of money the companies earned through federal contracts.

"Releasing this list is part of SBA's ongoing effort to increase the transparency, accuracy and integrity of government small-business contracting data," said SBA Administrator Steve Preston. "It also ensures that federal contracts get into the hands of small businesses and that federal agencies receive credit towards their small-business contracting goals."

The Top 100 small businesses received about $12 billion in fiscal 2006, representing about one-sixth of all federal small-business contract dollars paid that year.

SBA has been criticized in recent years for counting contracts with large companies as small-business contracts. The agency has been working for about 14 months to scrub 11 million contracts that had been improperly credited to small businesses from its Central Contractor Registration database. The contracts totaled about $4.6 billion, and agencies can no longer count them against their small-business goals.

However, among the top 100 companies, only one had been incorrectly classified as a small business, according to SBA.

The top 10 companies on SBA's list are:

• Procurenet Inc., with $364 million in contracts. The company outgrew its small-business classification in November 2006.
  
• Technical and Management Services, with $345 million in contracts. The company lost its small-business status after being acquired in March 2006.
  
• NJVC LLC, with $289.5 million.
  
• Datapath Inc., with $254.8 million.
  
• Calcasieu Refining Co. Inc., with $251 million.
  
• Petroleum Traders Corp., with $231 million.
  
• World Wide Technology, with $218.8 million.
  
• Environmental Quality Management, with $211 million.
  
• QSS Group Inc., with $194 million. QSS outgrew the small-business classification in July 2007.
  
• Softmart Government Services, with $184 million.