Ms. Brenda Fernandez Draft
U.S. Small Business Administration,
Office of Government Contracting,
409 3rd Street SW., 8th Floor,
Washington, DC 20416
Subject RIN: 3245-AG24
Dear Ms. Fernandez,
The Coalition for Government Procurement is pleased to submit the following
comments on the above referenced proposed rule concerning a government-wide
mentor protégé program.
The Coalition for Government Procurement (“The Coalition”) is a non-profit association
of firms selling commercial services and products to the Federal Government. Our
members collectively account for approximately 70% of the sales generated through the
GSA Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) program and about half of the commercial item
solutions purchased annually by the Federal Government. Coalition members include
small, medium, and large business concerns. The Coalition is proud to have worked
with Government officials for more than 35 years towards the mutual goal of common
sense acquisition.
1. One Government-Wide Mentor-Protégé Program
We support SBA’s decision to achieve simplicity and consistency by developing one
government wide program instead of 5 separate programs based on small business
type. Whether SBA implements one program, or five, it should eliminate or
substantially increase the number of protégés that each mentor can have. Both the
current and proposed rules generally allow a mentor to have one protégé. Under
appropriate circumstances, the rule allows a maximum of three in the aggregate. This
limitation does not serve the small business community well in circumstances where a
potential mentor does, in fact, have adequate resources to benefit multiple protégés. The
numerical limitation will lead to unnecessarily stringent selection criteria, potentially
eliminating small business firms that could benefit from the program
Regardless of whether the SBA implements a government-wide program or five
separate programs, prospective protégés with multiple socio-economic categories
1
should be eligible to participate in all program(s). This will help expand the possibility
of mentor-protégé relationships by growing the pool of eligible small businesses and ,
allowing mentors to provide a wider range of access to the benefits of the mentorprotégé program.
2. HUBZone Joint Venture (13 CFR 126.616)
We support allowing joint ventures between HUBZone firms and non-HUBZone firms.
Should the SBA choose to allow such joint ventures, the current limits on the number of
protégés that a mentors may have should be expanded to increase developmental
assistance available to HUBZones
3. Joint Venture Certifications and Performance of Work Reports – applies to all
joint ventures
We suggest that failure to comply with the joint venture regulations should result in
ineligibility to continue to perform specific contracts depending upon the seriousness of
the violation instead of suspension or debarment. For mild to moderate infractions, we
suggest that SBA require submission of a mitigation plan by joint venture partners that
must be approved by SBA. This plan could require periodic reporting to SBA on all
existing contracts to ensure both joint venture partners are operating in a good faith
effort to amend any failure to comply with joint venture regulations.
4. Tracking Joint Venture Awards
Inclusion of “joint venture” in a company name is not a viable resolution to track
awards because we do not believe that FPDS-NG has the ability to capture spending by
a joint venture “company type”. We propose that FPDS-NG be modified include a
specific field designated for joint venture identification.
5. Protégés (13 CFR 124.520)
We agree with SBA’s approach that protégé eligibility be open to all small businesses.
In order for protégés to fully gain the benefits of the Mentor-Protégé Program, the
company needs to be at a specific maturity phase of their businesses to include a proven
2
past performance record, developed infrastructure, etc. to allocate feasible resources to
the program. Allowing more mature small businesses to participate as protégés
facilitates more dynamic developmental assistance to be conducted strengthening the
contractor base for government procurements.
As certain Mentor-Protégé agreements may focus on particular developmental
assistance to a protégé, protégés should be permitted to have up to two mentors. 13
CFR 124.520 (c)(3), provides that mentor-protégé agreements should not be permitted
within the same arrangement of time. This section protects the protégé’s ability to
participate in concurrent mentor-protégé agreements without causing day-to-day
operations to suffer, counteracting the objective of the mentor-protégé program to help
small businesses enhance their business infrastructures.
6. Mentor-Protégé Programs of Other Departments and Agencies
The Mentor-Protégé Program was developed to incentivize all parties: protégé, mentor
and sponsoring agency. Therefore, whether the government decides to institute a single
government-wide Mentor-Protégé Program and/or allows other departments or
agencies to carry out their own agency specific Mentor-Protégé Program with SBA
approval, the programs should encourage consistency and continue to appropriately
incentivize mentors for the cost associated with the mentor-protégé activities.
7. Benefits of Mentor-Protégé Relationships (13 CFR 124.520 (d))
We believe that ownership interest should survive the conclusion of the mentor-protégé
agreement as it allows for the mentor to continue to support protégés when needed.
8. Written Mentor-Protégé Agreement
We support an open enrollment period to submit mentor-protégé agreements with no
limitation on the number of agreements approved overall by the SBA to allow
prospective protégés to create maximum competition in the government contracting
environment.
3
9. Change in Primary Industry
SBA should not automatically change an 8(a) firm’s primary NAICS code without the
consent of the firm. SBA should consider that FPDS-NG may not be a comprehensive
representation of the primary product and services a small business offers. An
automatic change could affect an 8(a)’s business size and eligibility as a prime and
subcontractor if an inappropriate NAICS code is designated per 76 FR 8221, which in
turn decreases competition and the number of qualified 8(a) firms.
4