Tag Archives: WIPP

From the Hill: Contractors Face Additional Reporting Burdens

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By: Jake Clabaugh, WIPP Government Relations

hillFederal contractors will now face a bevy of additional reporting requirements when seeking procurement opportunities. The House Small Business Committee held a hearing Tuesday to exam the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulations. These new rules are expected to be finalized late this year or early next year and require federal contractors to document and report labor law and safety violations for their firm and all subcontractors when bidding for contracts above $500,000.

WIPP supports efforts to rid the contracting environment of businesses with a history of abusive and neglectful violations, but these new rules will be particularly burdensome for small contractors. The House Committee hearing focused on the increased administrative burden that small contractors will face and how opportunities for small and women-owned businesses to enter the federal contracting arena will be affected.

WIPP addressed many of these issues in its official comment, submitted earlier this summer. The hearing highlighted the likelihood that contractors may be “blacklisted” from contracting opportunities, a concern that WIPP expressed. The regulations require all violations to be reported, even infractions that have yet to be adjudicated. The contractor is not afforded the opportunity for explanation until the contract is likely to be awarded. The danger is that a contracting officer will simply pass over or “blacklist” a potential contractor rather than dig deeper into nature and validity of the reported infraction. This could leave many upstanding small and women-owned firms with unproven or minor violations unable to secure contracting opportunities.

The hearing also stressed the duplicative nature of these regulations. Several witnesses noted how suspension and debarment procedures already exist. In its comments, WIPP recommended incorporating safe workplaces into the well-established system of suspension and debarment as an alternative to creating this enormous reporting burden.

These reporting requirements will impose significant costs for small and women-owned firms. Not only will it require the business to submit excessive documentation, it will also require significant resources to research, gather, and report the necessary information for the small business and all of its potential subcontractors.

Far from leveling the playing field for the millions of businesses playing already by the rules, these regulations will add to the tremendous burden facing small and women-owned businesses.

Celebrating National Women’s Small Business Month

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10mil

by AnnaKate Moeller, WIPP Programs Manager

This October we are particularly excited to celebrate National Women’s Small Business Month because of the release of the results of the 2012 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) and the SBA issuing the final rule on Sole Source Authority. It has been a big year for women in business to say the least.

The theme for this year’s National Small Business Month is “10 Million Strong” recognizing the 2012 SBO results of the nearly 10 million women-owned businesses currently in the United States. This is a 27.5% increase from 2007 survey results, showing that women-owned businesses are growing and in turn boosting the economy.

We also have cause to celebrate as the Small Business Administration issued the final rule improving access to federal contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses with Sole Source Authority. This rule is expected to be effective and available for use by federal agencies on October 14, 2015.

As we celebrate 10 Million Strong this October, WIPP will be highlighting women business owners on our boards, throughout our member base and networks. Please check out our twitter, Facebook and blog throughout the month to hear the stories of these female leaders.

WIPP is a proud partner with AT&T for their “It Can Wait” campaign

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ICW

September is here, and we’re shifting the It Can Wait® movement into high gear! During this month, we want you to show your commitment to this cause by sharing our new impactful video, “Close to Home.” There’s power in numbers!

Friends, family members, and even your social network can make a difference. While many of us have hundreds of smartphone contacts, new research from AT&T found that 2-in-3 people have almost all or most of their smartphone communications with just 5 people. More than 8-in-10 surveyed said they’d likely stop or reduce their smartphone use while driving if one or more of their top 5 contacts asked them to.1 Let’s band together and keep each other safe behind the wheel. Here’s how:

Spread the Word
During the month of September, you can spread the word by:

  1. Sharing this video “Close to Home” on social with your family, friends, and social network. Your influence can help keep those closest to you safe. #Tag5toSave5 friends by encouraging them to share this life-saving message.

    SAMPLE POST: No post, glance, or email is worth a life. RT to pledge to keep your eyes on the road, not on your phone. #ItCanWait http://soc.att.com/1PJXypp

  2. Renewing your pledge. Go to ItCanWait.com to extend your commitment beyond not texting while driving. No text, search, post, glance, or email is worth a life.

Thank you for your loyal commitment to helping us take the distraction out of driving. Please use this email to communicate the importance of safe driving and remind your network that no emailis that important. It Can Wait.

Follow us on Twitter @ItCanWait
Visit us at ItCanWait.com
Visit our merchandise store

How PPACA Will Affect Your Business The Next 5 Years?

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Tod Covert  By Todd Covert, Executive Vice President of ACA Track

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – also known as the Affordable Care Act or ACA – is the landmark health reform legislation passed by the 111th Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010. The legislation includes a long list of health-related provisions that began taking effect in 2010 and will “continue to be rolled out over the next four years.” Key provisions are intended to extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, to implement measures that will lower health care costs and improve system efficiency, and to eliminate industry practices that include rescission and denial of coverage due to pre-existing.

What does it mean for business today?

Business With 50-99 Employees 2015

Key Point #1

Navigating through transition relief to determine the date you need to make sure you are in compliance.

Applicable large employers (ALEs) with fewer than 100 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, may have until 2016 to offer health insurance to eligible employees and their dependents without facing penalties.

This transition relief is available to employers who can certify that they have not reduced their workforce to remain under the threshold and have not materially reduced or eliminated health coverage previously offered. This certification needs to be included with your filing under Section 6056 for 2015.

The IRS will still grant transition relief to employers who reduced their workforce for “bona fide” business reasons.

Key Point #2

If you are over 50 FTE (Full-Time Equivalents) or part of a control group (Parent Company) with more than 50 FTE than you MUST file the 1095-C and 1094-C even if you do not offer coverage.

Key Point #3

Don’t “expect” your payroll company to complete these 1094-C and 1095-C forms.

Why?  Most payroll companies don’t even track the information required to complete these new IRS forms—It is more a benefit enrollment and plan design function than payroll.

  1. Dates of hire and waiting periods determine when employees are in the limited assessment period. Partial months are treated uniquely differently than full months and the series coded will change. Most payroll vendors only track deductions.
  1. Termination, rehire dates and class changes impact offer of coverage and safe harbor designations. Employees with a number of changes during the year can see a variety of different codes appearing on form 1095. Not a payroll function
  1. Offer of coverage determines whether 70% (2015) and 95% (2016) levels are reached or significant penalties are to be paid. Not a payroll function
  1. Safe harbor designations and income drive affordability calculations. Not a payroll function
  1. Transition relief provides the ability to mitigate risk and avoid penalties altogether.  Not a payroll function

Key Point #4

Start balancing culture and cost now because the “Cadillac Tax” is on the horizon in 2018—It’s not a matter of “IF” we hit the Cadillac Tax it’s a matter of “When” we hit the Cadillac Tax.

If health insurance exceeds $10,200 in premiums for an individual or $27,500 for a family. The tax amounts to 40 percent of the cost above that threshold AND its Non-Tax Deductible.

Why do we say “When” we hit the Cadillac Tax?  The insurance cost threshold ($10,200 in premiums for an individual or $27,500 for a family) only increases at CPI each year which is about 3.1% and Healthcare inflation increases close to 8.0% thus the X & Y axis lines are eventually going to cross.

Please join us September 29th for Women Accessing Capital: 5 Things You Need to Know About the New 1094-C and 1095-C IRS Reporting. Register now! 

From The Hill: Dodd-Frank’s Impact on Small Business Lending

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By Jake Clabaugh, WIPP Government Relations

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Women entrepreneurs face unintended consequences of wall-street reform. According to a House Committee hearing yesterday, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, introduced in an effort to prevent another financial crisis, is contributing to small businesses’ inability to access capital from banks.

WIPP’s Access to Capital Platform has cited some of Dodd-Frank’s regulations as a contributing factor to the decrease in small businesses lending. Capital access is a lifeline for small businesses. It is essential for entrepreneurs to have access to sufficient capital to found and grow businesses.

DF picThe House Committee on Small Business convened lenders and experts to discuss how Dodd-Frank has affected the ability to provide entrepreneurs with critical capital. Access to private capital, including bank loans is a primary concern to women entrepreneurs as women-owned small businesses receive only 4% of private sector lending dollars. Additional regulatory burdens could be exacerbating this problem.

The hearing touched on many of the difficulties WIPP members have experienced when trying to access to capital. The Committee cited increased administrative burdens as a significant cost for small and community banks, a primary lender to small businesses. These regulations have increased the cost of making loans and therefore made it more difficult for banks and borrowers. The result is less capital for entrepreneurs.

The hearing also cited the direct impacts on borrowers. Many that would have qualified pre-recession are no longer able to obtain loans from banks due to tighter lending standards. WIPP’s platform advocates for modernized credit scoring that would level the playing field for women business owners.

Until Dodd-Frank is fully implemented, its complete impact will remain unclear. WIPP continues to review ongoing regulations as well as work with Congress to scale back unnecessary barriers to capital access for women entrepreneurs.

Success: Sole Source Finalized

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by Ann Sullivan, WIPP Government Relations 

When you’ve been working on a program for 15 years, it’s almost anti-climatic when you realize you won and it’s over. I suppose lawyers feel this way when they win a big case, or business owners when they close a major contract.

For me, the SBA announcement integrating a sole source component into the WOSB procurement program on October 14, 2015 marks the end of a long campaign by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). First, we fought for eleven years to establish a program that gives a government buying preference to women-owned companies whose industries have been underrepresented. Not an easy fight – we had plenty of Congressional and White House opponents—it wasn’t until the Obama Administration came into power that the program was established. At the time, SBA Administrator Karen Mills made it her number one priority, which we will always be thankful for. We had strong Congressional proponents – Senators Cantwell and Shaheen and Representatives Speier and Graves.

Then, we had to make the program work. That required two major changes to the program in 2013 and 2014. The first change required lifting the award caps the law imposed on the program. The WOSB procurement program limited contract awards through the program to $4 million ($6.5 million for manufacturing). In 2013, Congress helped us get rid of those caps. The last big piece was the sole source piece—allowing contracting officers to award sole source contracts to women-owned companies through the program. This major change gives the program parity with other small business programs and again, required Congressional action. Effective October 14, agencies will be able to use this mechanism to award contracts to women whose companies offer innovative products and services.

As with all government programs, the rules are a little complicated and the ability to self-certify as a woman owned business will eventually have to change, due to Congressional direction in 2014. But for now, self-certification remains the law and women should be actively pursuing contracts through the WOSB procurement program whether or not they are self-certified or certified by a third party.

It is important to note that not all industries (NAICS codes) qualify for the program. You can find a list at http://www.SBA.gov/WOSB. We have developed a one pager that go through the rules of the sole source portion of the program and our GiveMe5 program has comprehensive information on the WOSB program. In addition, our ChallengeHER events are all over the country so that women can find out more about the program. The information can all be found at www.wipp.org.

The WOSB procurement program is in good hands. All the major pieces to make it successful are in place. When we started this effort in 2002, women received 2.7% of government contracts. Since the program has been in place, more than $500 million has been set-aside for women- owned companies. In fact, in 2014 the government awarded 4.7% of its contracts to WOSBs –a 75% increase since 2002. Now women business owners need to know how to use it with the help of SBA, the federal contracting community and organizations, such as WIPP.

Fifteen years seems like a long time, but when you are fighting for something—somehow it doesn’t seem that long. WIPP members and coalition partners were with us every step of the way. For this, I am exceedingly grateful.

Introducing Peer-To-Peer Lending: Alternative Funding for Your Small Business

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SBA Advocacy- P2P issue brief

The Office of Advocacy is an independent office within the Small Business Administration that is a great source for small business statistics, as well as a voice for small business owners that can express their views and issues to policy makers in DC. Today, the Office of Advocacy released an issue brief on “Peer-To-Peer Lending: A Financing Alternative for Small Businesses”.

To explain a little more, Peer-To-Peer Lending or P2P is a funding model where individual investors give small personal loans online to individuals. The Office of Advocacy describes P2P as a hybrid of crowdfunding and marketplace lending.

The issue brief released today details the funding model and gives a side-by-side view of P2P and traditional small business financing options. It also shows how it could affect small businesses in the future, giving them more opportunity for financial growth.

Read the brief to learn more.

September 2015 WIPP National Partner of the Month: Tracy Balazs

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September 2015

WIPP National Partner of the Month: Tracy Balazs, President and CEO, Federal Staffing Resources, LLC dba FSR

We sat down with Tracy to hear more about her business and her relationship with WIPP:

Tracy Balazs

Tell us a little about your company and its mission.

FSR was started with the desire to help our wounded warriors heal and to provide healthcare personnel with the clinical expertise to our military treatment facilities and VA hospitals around the country.

Have you always been an entrepreneur?  If not, what, or who, inspired you to take this leap?

I was a Registered Nurse with 25 years of ICU and Trauma nursing experience. I had the opportunity to work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a government contractor.  This exposure provided me the ability to care for individuals who had sacrificed for our freedoms, hear their stories and meet their families. I was encouraged to start a business that could provide more than just my expertise at the bedside and also be an employer of best in class healthcare professionals that had the same passion as I did.

How has your background in Healthcare helped develop and grow your company?

As a RN, I understood the environment that I was placing our professionals in.  I could speak the same language, however, learning the business of government contracting was a challenge as my background was in patient care.  I was working nights as a RN at Walter Reed and during the day, I was focused getting business, writing proposals and learning about government contracting.

Do you have a contracting success story that you are proud of? 

There is not one contract that I am more proud of than the others, however, none came without sacrifices and hard work. Once you receive a Government contract, your goal is to exceed your customer’s expectations and  gain outstanding performance ratings. Having gotten my 8(a) certification within the same year as I started FSR (through a waiver), has helped me a great deal, although it took 18 months of hard work and complete dedication before I got my 1st Government contract.

Tell us about your experience as a WIPP Member? What resources/value has WIPP provided that has been helpful to you and your company?

WIPP has provided me with the education on policy and what is going on in government contracting  in a concise fashion.  There is a lot of material to read and learn about, however I can go to a single website and find out what is going on.  I was so excited that WIPP was so instrumental in getting sole source opportunities and specific set asides for WOSB!

Remarkable Advances For Women Business Owners

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By Jake Clabaugh, WIPP Government Relations

Annual Mtg 2014 - #2The U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Business Owners (SBO) showed impressive expansion for women-owned businesses. The survey’s latest data, released in August, showed nearly 10 million women-owned firms in the United States. This represents a 27% improvement from the survey’s last results in 2007. In the long term, the number of women-owned companies has increased over 50% since the survey showed 6.5 million firms in 2002.

This growth in women-owned firms is an encouraging economic indicator. Just as important, this progress occurred during the largest recession since the Great Depression. It stands as a testament to the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit of our country’s female business owners.

The SBO is an important tool for assessing the state and growth of businesses, particularly women-owned. The Census Bureau describes this survey as providing “the only source of detailed and comprehensive data on the status, nature, and scope of women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses.” While only the preliminary findings have been released, it provides an important preview of the more comprehensive data that will be made available later this year. The complete dataset will include more specified demographic breakdowns of firm ownership characteristics, including women-, minority- and veteran-owned businesses as well as revenues, size, industry-classification data, and geographic information.

It is imperative to use the most complete, comprehensive, and timely data to structure reasoned, directed policy initiatives and make informed decisions, thus, we are looking forward to having the complete survey data later this year. It will be an invaluable tool for guiding our policy direction moving forward, educating government entities and providing useful comparisons for individual firms. We whole-heartedly expect the full dataset to reveal many more successes.

“Fair Pay” Rules Just Aren’t Fair

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women comp

By John Stanford, WIPP Government Relations

Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) recently submitted comments on proposed regulations that would require federal contractors to disclose labor violations from the past three years. This blog accompanies those comments as a summary of WIPP’s position. For more details or if this impacts your business, I encourage you to read the full comment here.

Last summer, President Obama issued an Executive Order with the goal of barring bad companies from winning federal contracts. WIPP, along with most in the contracting community, agrees that companies that follow the rules should not have to compete against companies that break them for federal contracts.

In May, the Labor Department and the FAR Council (overseers of contracting rulebook, “the FAR”) proposed how the President’s order would be implemented. It turns out, as with most things, the devil is in the details.

The proposed regulations require federal contractors and subcontractors to disclose violations of 14 federal labor laws and equivalent state laws from the previous three years. Exemptions were provided for companies with contracts valued less than $500,000. As proposed, prospective federal contractors would need to declare if they had labor violations in the previous three years when submitting an offer. During an initial evaluation, contracting officers would see that declaration (a simple “yes” or “no”), without any additional detail or explanation.

Later, if a contractor were likely to win an award, the contracting officer would have to decide if the contractor is a responsible company (a requirement of all government contracts already). It is in this phase that details like appeals, remediation, or mitigating factors could be explained. Contracting officers will attempt to identify companies with “serious”, “willful”, “repeated”, and/or “pervasive” violations and not award them contracts. Companies with minor violations could still be considered responsible and win contracts.

WIPP responded to the regulation during the public comment period expressing concerns with the new system and how it could negatively impact women-owned businesses, including those who had no history of unsafe or unfair work practices.

Notably, the proposals were incomplete as the Labor Department and FAR Council chose not to include what state labor law violations must be reported. It is impossible to gauge the impact of a regulation – the reason for comments– when missing significant portions.

What was in the proposals, however, was equally concerning. WIPP’s comment discusses how, in some cases, violations that require reporting will not be be fully adjudicated. That is, companies would have to report decisions against them that may ultimately be overturned – as nearly a third of NLRB decisions have been.

This is compounded by WIPP’s worry that simply having violations on record will “blacklist” companies without providing any opportunity to offer explanation. With limited resources and time, contracting officers may elect to avoid companies with any disclosed violations, despite the intent of the order to only bar violations of a certain severity.

The comment also considers burdens on subcontractors who similarly must report violation history, and the lack of resources the government may face to answer questions about weighing different labor violations. Moreover, the onus to collect and judge subcontractor violations falls to primes, a strategy the Labor Department itself questions.

WIPP’s final concern is that this rule is one of many in a disconcerting trend of new regulations that specifically target federal contractors. Earlier this year, regulations raised the minimum wage solely for workers on federal contracts. New requirements regarding sick leave are expected to come later this year. These make contracting with the federal government more onerous, particularly for women entrepreneurs seeking to enter the market.

Without question, WIPP supports efforts by the federal government to rid the contracting environment of businesses with a history of abusive and neglectful violations. In doing so, the government levels the playing field for the millions of businesses playing by the rules. But the proposals commented on will not achieve this goal. Instead, they will make it harder to be a contractor – pushing the innovative products and services of women-owned businesses out of the federal market.