Research Reporter :: September 2007
Research Information from the University of Michigan

Help with Small Business Subcontracting Plans available to researchers

By Lyn Fyfe
Procurement Services

Federal sponsors require a Small Business Subcontracting Plan for contracts that exceed $500,000 over the entire course of the contract. Under these plans, a certain percentage of the direct cost expenditures must be spent with vendors in the small business categories.

Eligible categories are:

Small Business
Woman-owned Business
Historically Under-utilized Business Zone
Small Disadvantaged Business
Veteran-owned Small Business
Service-disabled Veteran-owned Small Business.

Procurement Services supports the research community in fulfilling this federal requirement.

Procurement Services will help the researchers on a federal project:

write the small business plan;
find small business vendors who can provide products or services to support the project; and
monitor spending with the small businesses over the course of the project.
Procurement Services also submits the required semi-annual and annual reports to the federal agencies.

The Principal Investigator and research administrator are sent quarterly reports to show their progress in meeting the small business spending goals. It is critical that small business subcontracting goals be met. If the contractor -- in this case, the University of Michigan -- fails to make good faith efforts to comply with the subcontracting goals, the sponsor may impose penalties, including partial or total reimbursement of funds.

Failure to meet the subcontracting goals may also jeopardize funding prospects for other University of Michigan applicants.

For more information on Small Business Subcontracting Plans and federal requirements, please visit the Procurement Services web site: http://www.procurement.umich.edu/fed_small_business.html

September 2007

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