HR8879-119

What This Bill Does

The Oversight and Transparency for Small Business Certifications Act replaces the Small Business Act certification-report subsection. Each year, when the President's budget is submitted, the SBA Administrator must report to Congress on small business participation in covered contracting programs. The report must include the number of unique certified firms, complete applications, certifications by program, applications still awaiting determinations, applications seeking multiple certifications, applications submitted through SBA's unified certification platform, and certifications stored outside that platform.

The bill requires separate detail for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, women-owned small businesses, HUBZone firms, and other covered certification programs. It asks for counts of certified, denied, and pending applications; whether women-owned firms are eligible for sole-source awards; use of national certifying entities; incomplete application issues; and processing-time measures for first-time certifications and recertifications.

Who Benefits and How

Service-disabled veteran-owned firms benefit from public data on SBA approval, denial, pending, and processing times. Women-owned firms benefit from separate reporting on sole-source eligibility, national certifying entities, and incomplete application issues. HUBZone applicants benefit from program-specific certification status data. Congressional small-business committees benefit from annual oversight data tied to the budget cycle. SBA certification managers benefit from a clearer statutory reporting checklist that can expose bottlenecks in the unified platform.

Who Bears the Burden and How

SBA certification offices must collect, reconcile, and report detailed application metrics across multiple programs. Unified certification platform managers must track submissions and certifications stored outside the platform. National certifying entities for women-owned firms must provide data that can be reported by SBA. Firms with pending or denied applications may face more visible processing outcomes. SBA budget staff must integrate the report with the annual budget submission.

Key Provisions

• Requires annual SBA certification reports with the President's budget submission.
• Requires counts of certified, denied, pending, complete, multi-certification, and unified-platform applications.
• Requires separate metrics for service-disabled veteran-owned, women-owned, HUBZone, and other covered contracting programs.
• Directs reporting on certification and recertification processing times.
• Requires reporting on women-owned sole-source eligibility and national certifying entity processing.