Small businesses have gotten only 10 percent of stimulus work - bizjournals:

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percent of contracts funded by the economi c stimuluspackage — far below the federal government’xs overall goal of 23 percent. “This is simply said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, at a May 21 hearingh on opportunities for small businesses to win contracts fundeed bythe $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Snowe, the ranking Republican on the Senat e Small Business andEntrepreneurship Committee, said therew still is time for smallo businesses to win thei fair share of stimulus work because many contractw funded by the law have not been awarderd yet. “But I must confess, I’m not encourage by the resultsso far,” Snowse said.
Committee chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she is “concerneed that small businesses are being left out of many contractingg opportunities for newinfrastructure projects.” “In after Katrina and Rita recovery money was spent, we learnede that many small businesses nevedr even knew about rebuilding contracts,” she Landrieu said the intent of the hearinfg was “to prevent us from lookintg back in five years to ask why recovery act funding never made its way to small businesses.
” Snowew and Landrieu sent the nation’s governors a letter May 20 that encouragef them to make small businessesz a priority when states award stimulus-funded This followed a similar letter sent by Karem Mills, head of the . The Office of Management and Budgegt also has urged federal agencies to issue contracts tosmall businesses. Joseph Jordan, the SBA’sx associate administrator for government contractinv andbusiness development, said small businesses had been awardex $389 million in stimulus contracts as of May 19.
The SBA is workingb with federal agencies to help them meettheir small-businesxs goals, he said, noting that the share of stimulud dollars going to small contractors has been increasing each Information on government contracting is available at SBA’s Web , and contracting including stimulus contracts, are listed on . The SBA also is tryiny to help small businesses win subcontractds from larger businesses that are awardecdstimulus contracts. It has launchedd a Web site — that lists stimulus-related subcontracting As of May 26, the site listedx only 13 subcontracting solicitations. Stimulus work has made a big differenc forSSACC Inc., a landscaping subcontractor in Ill.
Sharon Arnold, the company’s president, said she has been able to rehirre her workers thanksto stimulus-funded highwagy projects. In December, she had to lay everyonwe off. “The stimulus bill has saved my company,” Arnolfd told the Senate committee.