Small Businesses Cheer Anti-bundling Legislation
Small Businesses Cheer Anti-bundling Legislation By Shannon Henry Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., has introduced a bill to amend the Small Business Act to make it harder for federal agencies to create omnibus contracts. A formal protest has been filed by the small business community against federal government contract bundl
Small Businesses Cheer Anti-bundling Legislation
By Shannon Henry
Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., has introduced a bill to amend the Small Business Act to make it harder for federal agencies to create omnibus contracts. |
Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., has introduced a bill to amend the Small Business Act to make it harder for federal agencies to create omnibus contracts. Wynn said such contracts limit the number of businesses that have a shot at competing for the work.
"The trend toward bundling represents a threat to small and minority businesses," said Wynn in an interview. "It represents a barrier to market entry."
Contract bundling is currently the single biggest challenge to the 8(a) community, said Fernando Galaviz of the National Federation of 8(a) Companies. |
The SBA particularly commended Wynn in coming up with a definition of contract bundling, something that had previously been conspicuously missing.
Wynn's definition of contract bundling is: "The practice of consolidating two or more procurement requirements of a type that were previously solicited and awarded as separate small contracts into a single contract solicitation likely to be unsuitable for award to a small business concern."
The large companies that win the bundled contracts are obviously not supporting Wynn, but he said so far there has not been an official statement filed against the bill. Procurement officers, too, may say that it is more efficient to prepare one contract rather than many, Wynn said. Wynn is now trying to round up Republican support for his proposal. "There is bipartisan interest in the bill," he said. "We've got a good chance."
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