Small firms get only 10 percent of stimulus work - bizjournals:

asabcitxit.blogspot.com
percent of contracts funded by the economicx stimuluspackage — far below the federa l government’s overall goal of 23 percent. “Thix is simply unacceptable,” said Sen. Olympia Snoww (R-Maine), at a May 21 hearing on opportunities for small businesses to win contracts funded bythe $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestmentg Act. Snowe, the ranking Republican on the Senat e Small Business andEntrepreneurship Committee, said therwe still is time for small businesses to win their fair share of stimulusz work since many contracts funded by the law have not been awardes yet. “But I must confess, I’m not encouraged by the resultxso far,” Snowe said.
Committee chaid Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said she is “concerned that small businessew are being left out of many contractingf opportunities for new infrastructure In Louisiana, after Katrina and Rita recovery money was we learned that many small businessea never even knew about rebuilding contracts.” Snowew and Landrieu sent the nation’s governors a letted May 20 that encouraged them to make smallk businesses a priority when states award stimulus-funded This followed a similar letter sent by Karen head of the . The Office of Management and Budgety has urged federal agencies to issue contracts tosmalpl businesses.
Joseph Jordan, the SBA’s associats administrator for government contracting andbusiness development, said smalk businesses have been awarded $389 million in stimulu contracts as of May 19. The SBA is working with federa agencies to help them meet thei r smallbusiness goals, he said, notinfg the share of stimulus dollars going to small contractor has been increasing each week. Nearly half of all smallo business owners have experienced cash flow problems durinf the past three according to a survey conductedf in May by Rasmussen Reportxs for DiscoverBusiness Card.
That numberr is up from 39 percentin April, and is the highest since Discover launched its monthly smalol business survey three years ago. The survey also foundr that 48 percent of small business owners said economic conditions for their businesses aregettinvg worse, up from 40 percent in April. More than half plan to decreass spending on business development over the nextsix months. This includews advertising, inventory and capital