A House committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday has been cancelled after agencies that were subpoenaed to testify about their refusal to put senior leadership in charge of their small business contracting activities decided to reorganize instead. On Oct. 20, House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves issued subpoenas to the Treasury, State, Justice and Agriculture departments, requiring their deputy secretaries attend a Nov. 1 hearing to discuss their noncompliance with the federal Small Business Act. The four agencies had previously refused to change the organizational structure of their Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), which, according to the federal Small Business Act, is supposed…
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House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves today issued subpoenas to four federal agencies seeking answers for why they refuse to put senior leadership in charge of small business contracting activities, a committee spokesman said. The Treasury, State, Justice and Agriculture departments have said they believe they are in compliance with the spirit of a law that requires agencies to put their Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization in direct contact with the agency’s secretary or deputy secretary. Each agency is required to have an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) under the Small Business Act to ensure contracts…
Agencies that refuse to put senior leadership in charge of their small business contracting activities, as required by law, will be asked to explain their noncompliance to a House small business subcommittee. The Small Business Act requires each agency to have an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) that ensures contracts are written with small business participation in mind. By law, the director of these offices should report directly to an agency’s secretary or deputy secretary. The Government Accountability Office reported in June that the Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Justice, State and Treasury departments are not complying with the…
Small business program directors at seven federal agencies have been asked by a House subcommittee to explain why they are sidestepping reporting requirements. The directors of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) at the Agriculture, Justice, State, Commerce, Treasury and Interior departments as well as the Social Security Administration were not reporting directly to their agency heads, as required by the Small Business Act, according to a June Government Accountability Office report. The reporting requirement is meant to ensure that OSDBU directors have direct access to their agencies’ top decision makers to advocate for small businesses in…