On February 9 - 10, 2016, the National 8(a) Association held its annual winter conference in Orlando, Florida at the Caribe Royale Hotel. As usual, the conference was well attended by representatives of both industry and government. Attendees were treated to informative general sessions, a wide variety of breakout sessions, and numerous opportunities to network with other businesses, consultants and government representatives. Unfortunately, the weather was not as warm as some of us may have liked, but it was still a great conference.
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 Legal Updates Panel: Christine Williams, John Klein and John DeVore |  SBA's list of things to look out for in 2016 |
 Acting Director, DoD Office of Small Business Programs Kenyata Wesley |  Associate Administrator of Business Development for the SBA, Jackie Robinson-Burnette |
Here are some of the highlights of this year's winter conference:
- SBA General Counsel John Klein announced that the SBA anticipates issuing Final Rules this summer, and some of the things that will be in the Final Rules include:
- The manner in which Native Hawaiian Organizations (NHOs) establish economic disadvantage will be done in the same way that Tribes establish economic disadvantage.
- The similarly-situated rule (which is relevant for subcontracting) will apply only to subcontractors at the first tier (rather than at any tier, which was what the proposed rule stated).
- For the similarly-situated rule, written agreements with the "similarly-situated entity" will not be required as part of the proposal submission process.
- For the similarly-situated rule, reporting to the Contracting Officer will not per se be mandatory, but the Contracting Officer does have the authority to require reporting.
- The prime contractor will be able to assign the NAICS code to the subcontract.
- For affiliation based on economic dependence the presumption in cases of 70% or more economic dependence: (1) clarifies situations where the presumption will not apply, such as in the case of a startup firm; and (2) clarifies that the presumption does not apply to Tribally-owned, ANC-owned and NHO-owned firms.
- For the new mentor-protege program, this will be administered by a separate office under Jackie Robinson-Burnette, Associate Administrator of Business Development.
- For both mentor-protege programs, good financial health of the mentor is established as long as the mentor shows they can meet their financial obligations under the program.
- Mr. Kenyata Wesley, Acting Director of the DoD's Office of Small Business Programs discussed the following:
- Unless specifically exempted, large businesses that obtain overseas contracts will be required to have a small business subcontracting plan.
- DoD is pushing forward with an aggressive subcontract surveillance monitoring program and CPARS reviews are giving more weight to those businesses that are meeting their small business subcontracting plans/goals.
- In assigning a competition goal to the DoD, Congress has sent a message to the DoD that they want to see the DoD sole-source less and use competitive procurement more.
- Ms. Jackie Robinson-Burnette, SBA Associate Administrator of Business Development, discussed the following:
- The SBA has a goal of growing the 8(a) BD program by 100 firms (currently there are 4,700).
- She intends to be more flexible with agencies in terms of allowing them to take contracts out of the 8(a) program (however, the agency should be prepared to justify their decision and also agree to replace the contract with others of similar value).
- The Benefits Report applicable to entity-owned firms is now 2 pages (down from 9) and should be rolled out soon.
- In 2017, the SBA will work on streamlining the entity-owned firm application process.
