RSSBy DAVID GOLDSTEIN
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/172453-p2.html
The Star’s Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON | From the Pentagon to the Treasury, Washington has shortchanged disabled veterans by failing to award enough government contracts to their businesses.
Congress offered a boost in 1999 by passing a law urging every federal agency to award 3 percent of all contracts to firms owned by retired military personnel disabled by active-duty wounds or injuries.
Eight years later, however, only the Federal Emergency Management Agency has met the target – and exceeded it – according to a report from the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
On the other hand, the Department of Defense, which accounts for more than half of all the federal contracts issued, is one of the worst offenders.
Just half of 1 percent of its nearly $220 billion in 2005 contracts went to service-disabled veterans’ concerns, records show.
“What is so hard about doing business with men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country?” asked Sen. John Kerry, small business chairman and a Democrat, at a hearing this year.
The veterans’ community and its supporters said that for all of its good intentions, the 3 percent law has no teeth. Still, they’re trying to push the bureaucracy to honor it.
“There are no repercussions for not following the law,” said Ted Daywalt, president of Vetjobs, an Internet job board for veterans. “It’s like, ‘So “?what?’
Throughout the government, less than 1 percent of all federal contracts have gone to these firms, according to the Senate report, which was issued in March, but received little attention.
“Certainly we need to meet the goal,” said Calvin Jenkins, a contracting official with the U.S. Small Business Administration, which oversees government procurement.
He noted the government issued slightly more than half a billion dollars in 2001 contracts to disabled veteran-run businesses. In 2005, that rose to nearly $2 billion.
Veterans of all stripes own about 3 million small businesses, according to the Senate report. Jenkins said federal contracting officials contend that part of their problem is finding firms with the skills needed.
But Bob Hesser, a service-disabled veteran who owns a technology consulting firm in Virginia, said disabled veteran-run businesses do everything “from making bags to working on missiles. Every field you can think of.”
Joseph Forney said the problem stems from officials who see the act as discretionary. “They have the latitude to either use disabled vets or not.”
The Naval veteran who runs a wholesale electrical supply company in California, worked to get the 1999 law passed. Forney, who lost part of his right arm in a military training accident, was an SBA Veteran Advocate of the Year in 2002.
His company has worked for the California state prison system, the Los Angeles school district, AT&T and others. But Forney and others told of being asked to bid on federal contracts, then were never contacted or were told that the job had been canceled. They also said that disabled veteran-run businesses sometimes get added as subcontractors to larger jobs because of their disabled status, but then are never given any work.
“The law is not working out the way we wanted it to work,” said former Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, who, as a Republican member of the House in 1999, wrote the law. “A lot of it is just inertia. The contracting people, unless they get leadership and constant pressure from the top, are going to take the path of least resistance.”
“We’re concerned about it,” said Anthony Martoccia, who recently became director of the small business program at the Defense Department.
“We are making it a priority. We owe the veterans the opportunity when they get back, if they are entrepreneurs, to compete.”
Even worse than Defense in terms of meeting the 3 percent goal were the departments of Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Treasury.
The Departments of Veterans Affairs and State fared better than most, though neither met the goal. Each spent more than 2 percent of contracting funds on businesses owned by disabled veterans.
Lawmakers waded back into the law in 2003 to make the task of awarding contracts easier.
Congress tweaked the law to allow federal procurement officers to issue sole-source contracts to service-disabled veteran-owned businesses in cases where the competition was limited.
Then in 2004, with the Iraq war starting to exact a painful toll on the troops, President Bush issued an executive order underscoring the importance of helping disabled veterans. He ordered federal agencies to step up their contracting, designate a top official to oversee the effort and report their progress annually to the SBA.
But little changed, veterans and their supporters said.
“You’d think that after two laws and a presidential executive order, I’d be turning work down,” Forney said.
To reach David Goldstein, call 202-383-6105 or send e-mail to dgoldstein@mcclatchydc.com.