Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Concerns (SDVOSBC)
QUESTION: Is it fair to ever award a government contract on a 'sole source' bid to a qualified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Concerns (SDVOSB) candidate?
The Issue: In accordance with 13 C.F.R. 125.19 and 125.20, contracting officers may award a sole source or set-aside contract to SDVOSBCs, if certain conditions are met.
Set-Aside programs have been a hot button piece of the Affirmative Action/Discrimination debate. Typically the issue centered on race or gender based set asides. The Federal Government or individual States have different programs to set aside funds solely for companies run by minorities or women. Let's take the issue in a slightly different direction.
The Federal Government has a set-aside program for contracting related to disabled veterans.
The Small Business Administration says that more than 13.8 Billion was spent in 2008 with Veteran Owned businesses and 6.4 Billion of that going to service-disabled small firms. While this statistic is a bit out of date it is worth checking out this site I took the numbers from as it shows some concern about accountability.
https://sdvosb.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/va-sets-rules-for-set-aside-program/