•  20-minute pitches 
• Judging panel of industry experts 
• Potential award of up to six Mentor-Protégé Agreements (MPAs) 

DCAA Training – Pricing Series – Part 1
Date: July 10
Time: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Click here to register

Urgent & Important: 
SBA to Pause Acceptance of Small Business Certification Applications

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has recently announced that it will temporarily pause accepting applications for federal small business certifications beginning August 1st, 2024, through September as it performs system upgrades to its certifications portal. If you’ve been working on your certification application, we recommend completing your submission before August 1st. If you aren’t in a rush to certify (or re-certify) your business, the SBA plans to re-open its certification portal and continue accepting applications in early September. For additional information about this upgrade, visit SBA’s official certification website.

How Long Do I Have to Respond to a Federal Solicitation?

You’ve identified a federal government solicitation that’s right up your alley–but how long do you have to submit your proposal? The answer depends, in large part, on the type of solicitation at issue.

Federal Acquisition Regulation 5.203(c) establishes the general rule: “agencies shall allow at least a 30-day response time for receipt of bids or proposals from the date of issuance of a solicitation” unless an exception applies. Thus, in many cases, a contractor will have at least thirty days (and sometimes more) to respond. There are two important exceptions allowing for shorter timeframes, however.

These key exceptions arise if (1) the contract resulting from the solicitation will be more than $25,000 but will fall below the simplified acquisition threshold (currently $250,000 for most acquisitions); or (2) the contract resulting from the solicitation will be more than $25,000 and the contract is for commercial goods or services. In either of these two cases, the government merely must “establish a solicitation response time that will afford potential offerors a reasonable opportunity to respond,” considering “the circumstances of the individual acquisition, such as the complexity, commerciality, availability, and urgency.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has held that agencies enjoy substantial discretion to establish solicitation response periods shorter than 30 days when one of these exceptions applies. For example, in a recent bid protest decision, Allserv, Inc., B-422347 (2024), the GAO upheld a 10-day response period for a commercial solicitation. In this case, the GAO held that the short timeframe was allowable given that “the procurement is for readily available services with minimal complexity” and that “the solicitation limits the submission of non-price quotations to just two pages.” The GAO also noted that the agency received seven bids in response to the solicitation, undercutting the protester’s suggestion that it was impossible to prepare an acceptable response within the 10-day period.

It’s worth noting, however, that agency discretion with respect to establishing response periods is not entirely unlimited, even when an exception to the thirty-day period applies. For example, in another bid protest decision, Eastern Forestry, B-411848 (2015), the GAO held that a response period of fifteen hours (yes, that’s hours, not days) was unreasonably short. 

Fortunately, barring emergencies, agencies seldom attempt to impose deadlines as short as the one seen in Eastern Forestry. Nevertheless, many federal acquisitions are classified as commercial, fall below the simplified acquisition threshold, or both. Therefore, it is very important for government contractors to have systems in place to promptly identify and review new solicitations of interest. Keep in mind that the response time, whether 30 days or something else, is always based on the government’s publication of the solicitation, not the time the contractor first discovers or reads it. 

If you would like assistance establishing or improving your processes for identifying and tracking federal solicitations, your APEX Accelerator can help! Contact your APEX Accelerator counselor for an appointment.

Updated Directory of Prime Contractors Now Available 

Prospective small business subcontractors often wonder where they can begin looking for potential large primes interested in subcontracting to them. The government has recently updated one valuable resource to help small business subcontractors: its annual Directory of Federal Government Prime Contractors with Subcontracting Plans. The Directory provides a list of prime contractors with contractual requirements to subcontract to small businesses. You can find the updated Directory here. 

If you seek teaming partners for government contracting opportunities, your APEX Accelerator can help! APEX Accelerators help contractors network with buying officers, prime contractors, and other businesses. Contact your APEX Accelerator counselor today for an appointment.

This section highlights items of special interest and importance to the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs (DOD OSBP). Please take a moment to visit the sites listed below for additional information. We also suggest that you read the latest edition of the DOD’s Small Business Digest (log into LinkedIn to access this resource) if you want to do business with the DOD.

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)/Cybersecurity Compliance Resources
DOD CMMC Resource Page – Resources to assist government contractors with understanding and complying with CMMC/cybersecurity requirements.
Project Spectrum – Project Spectrum is working with APEX Accelerators to assist small businesses in achieving compliance with CMMC/cybersecurity requirements. 

Foreign Ownership, Control, and Influence (FOCI) Resources
FOCI Frequently Asked Questions -- FOCI is a status or situation in which a contractor with access to classified information has some foreign investment or association with foreign interest. Learn more about the federal government’s requirements relating to FOCI. 
https://business.defense.gov/ – The official website of DOD OSBP. It contains additional information, news, events, and other items for those interested in doing business (or currently engaged) with the DOD.

DOD Seeks to Address FOCI Risks for Covered Contractors, Subcontractors With New Directive
The Department of Defense (DOD) has issued a new directive to establish policy and assign responsibilities to evaluate and determine whether the ownership of a covered contractor or subcontractor requires the implementation of foreign ownership, control, or influence mitigation measures. Read the article here and see the directive here.

Foundational Cybersecurity Standards for Contractors Updated
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released the third version of its publication 800-171. Read the revision here.