On November 8, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee held a hearing entitled, “Strengthening Hurricane Recovery Efforts for Small Businesses.” The committee held a previous hearing on this topic on September 22 (see The Source, 9/23/05).
Updating the committee on the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) efforts to provide relief to small businesses affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, SBA Administrator Hector Barreto said that the Office of Disaster Assistance “has doubled its staff and continues to grow to meet the needs of the disaster. SBA now has over 3,700 employees in the Office of Disaster Assistance. They are working non-stop, seven days a week, 18 hours a day to handle the volume of requests. We have over 225,000 square feet of operations at our Fort Worth loan processing center. We have literally exhausted the market for business loan officers, but that has not stopped us. To respond to this unprecedented disaster we are temporarily transferring experienced SBA lending staff to our Fort Worth processing center and the backup center in Sacramento, and we have initiated a program ‘Give a Lending Hand’ to ask banks and lenders around the country to lend SBA experienced loan officers as Special Government Employees to assist in processing the loans.”
With regard to government contracting in the Gulf Coast, Administrator Barreto stated, “SBA is committed to making sure that our small business customers receive fair opportunities to help in the rescue, relief and reconstruction effort and continues to use a variety of resources to match small businesses with Hurricane Katrina contracting opportunities,” adding, “To date, small business has been awarded over 45 percent of the contracting dollars put out for Hurricane Katrina and Rita cleanup and recovery…Last Friday, SBA and FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] announced $1.5 billion in 8(a) and small business set-aside contracts.” He further stated, “SBA is working hard with the Small and Disadvantaged Business officers at each agency and the results are there the General Services Administration has reported over $260 million in small business contracting, the Department of Homeland Security over $257 million, EPA over $34 million, just as examples.”
Administrator Barreto also noted that the SBA is “actively collaborating with the President’s Urban Entrepreneur Partnership, which is helping local minority firms prepare for and perform on government and private sector contracts, particularly through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s intrusive coaching program. The SBA is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that opportunities exist for small businesses to participate on contracts for the Gulf Coast recovery and reconstruction. Our efforts to date include exploring procurement strategies that we believe will expand the number of small businesses, including local 8(a) and HUBZone firms, participating in these contracts. To optimize the participation of local small businesses, we are also using our field staff and resources partners to verify the operational capacity of local small businesses, and then provide listings of these firms to the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition, we will expedite the processing of Mentor-Protégé agreements and provide priority processing of 8(a) and SDB [small disadvantaged business] certification applications from firms in the affected area.”
