WOSB Rules and Musings from a Different Time

I finally retrieved my dry cleaning that I had deposited at the cleaners in March.  Then Virginia shut down with my dry cleaning hostage in a remote dry cleaning storage location.  I was reunited with my clothing this month, but my suit looked like an artifact from another era.  It was like retrieving a time capsule of clothing that contained zippers and buttons and had “dry clean only” labels.  There were no elastics of any kind.  What will the business future look like? Will men ever wear ties again or will those become the attire of yesteryear?

I went into my office for the first time in months to do a zoom hearing without pets walking in front of the camera.  I think I was one of maybe a dozen people or so in the entire office complex.  The deli is closed, as are the coffee shops.  There is no rush hour traffic. Just like there are no new procurement rules.  FAR updates?  Not that I know of.  They have gone the way of neckties and rush hour traffic.

The only news I have is that the Women Owned Small Business rules are finally out. As of July 15, 2020, the certification process for Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs) and Economically Disadvantaged WOSBs (EDWOSBs) has changed. SBA has implemented Congress’ changes to the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contracting Program (WOSB Federal Contracting Program), as put forth in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

SBA wants to have oversight over the certification process which has been previously inconsistently implemented through various private certifiers.  Each of them had different qualifications and forms.

With the updated WOSB Federal Contracting Program regulations in effect:

• SBA’s new, free online certification process for WOSBs and EDWOSBs is live on certify.sba.gov.
• SBA allows participation from firms certified by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Center of Verification and Evaluations, provided they meet all eligibility requirements.
• SBA allows continued participation from businesses that utilize approved Third-Party Certifiers (TPCs) to obtain WOSB or EDWOSB certification.
• The current self-certification option from sba.govwill be available through October 15, 2020. After that, all firms will have to use the new, free online certification process at beta.certify.sba.gov, including uploading TPC-certified documentation for processing.

As a refresher in order to qualify as a WOSB, a business must:

• Be a small business
• Be at least 51 percent owned and controlled by women who are U.S. citizens
• Have women manage day-to-day operations and also make long-term decisions

I’ll keep you current on the latest news on this program.  Contact me if you have any questions regarding this or any federal contracting issue at [email protected].   You can also post on the issue of tie versus no tie in the no COVID office of the future.