Small businesses winning just 10 percent of stimulus work, SBA tells Congress - Wichita Business Journal:

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percent of contracts funded by the economic stimulus package — far below the federal government’s overall goal of 23 “This is simply unacceptable,” said Sen. Olympia R-Maine, at a May 21 hearing on opportunities for smallo businesses to win contractz funded bythe $787 billionb American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Snowe said thers still is time for small businesses to win theird fair share of stimulus work since many contracts funded by the law have not been awarded yet. “But I must confess, I’m not encouragede by the resultsso far,” Snowre said. Committee Chair Mary D-La.
, said she is “concerned that small businesses are being left out of many contractiny opportunities for newinfrastructure projects. In Louisiana, aftet Katrina and Rita recovery money was we learned that many small businessezs never even knew abougrebuilding contracts.” Landrieu said the intent of the May 21 hearinb was “to prevent us from looking back in five yearw to ask why Recovery Act funding nevedr made its way to small businesses.” Snowe and Landrieu sent the nation’sz governors a letter May 20 that encouragerd them to make small businessesd a priority when states award stimulus-fundeed contracts.
Joseph Jordan, the SBA’s associate administrator for governmenft contracting andbusiness development, said small businesses have been awarderd $389 million in stimulus contracts as of May 19. The SBA is working with federal agencies to help them meet thei smallbusiness goals, he The SBA has offered federalp contracting officials help in finding small businesses suitablse for stimulus contracts. It also has held workshopw for small businesses on how to do businesz with the government and find stimuluscontracy opportunities. Information on government contracting is availableat SBA’s Web www.sba.
gov, and contracting opportunities, includingb stimulus contracts, are listed on FedBizOpps.gov. The SBA also is trying to help small businesses win subcontractes from larger businesses that are awardeddstimulus contracts. It has launched a Web site www.sba.gov/subnet — that lists stimulus-related subcontracting Nearly half of all smallo business owners have experienced cash flow problemzs during the pastthree months, according to a survey conducted in May by for . That number is up from 39 percent in April, and is the highest sincre Discover launched its monthly small businessx survey three years ago.
The survey also found that 48 percent of smallk business owners said that economic condition for their businesses aregetting worse, up from 40 percengt in April. More than half plan to decreas spending on business development over the next six Thisincludes advertising, inventory and capital The recession also is affecting smalll business owners’ vacation plans: 56 percent said they have postponer or canceled time off this summer due to the poor Only 29 percent said they have takenn a vacation of one week or longer in the past