Puerto Rico, USVI small businesses landed $618M+ in federal contracts in FY2019
The U.S. Small Business Administration announced that 2,067 small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were awarded $618.8M in federal contracts during Fiscal Year 2019.
The information is included in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2019 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard, which confirms that $132.9 billion in prime federal contracts — 26.5% of the federal contracting dollars — were awarded to small businesses across the nation.
The federal government-wide prime contracting goal is for at least 23% of all prime federal contracting dollars should be awarded to small businesses, the agency said.
The federal government exceeded the goal for Women-Owned Small Businesses for the second time in the history of the Scorecard measurement program, achieving the five percent goal for the first time in FY15 and building upon the record successes.
The Women-Owned Small Businesses achievement for FY19 was 5.19%, setting a new record. Of the federal dollars distributed to Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Island small business contractors last year, 16.27% went to WOSBs.
The U.S. government also exceeded the goal for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses for the seventh consecutive year, achieving the three percent goal for the first time in FY12 in addition to surpassing another goal of contracts going to Small Disadvantaged Businesses, where the trend of year-over-year record achievement that well exceeds the five percent goal was continued, the agency said.
The overall FY19 numbers are an increase of $12.1 billion over the previous fiscal year and marks the seventh consecutive year the federal government exceeded its small business contracting goal.
Targeted sub-goals are also established for women-owned small businesses (5%), small disadvantaged businesses (5%), firms located in HUBZones (3%) and service disabled veteran-owned small businesses (3%) as well which are meant to be subsets of the overall small business goal of 23%.
Puerto Rico and USVI-based small businesses surpassed each of the five category’s goal, the agency confirmed.
“More than $750 million in federal contracting dollars were awarded directly to small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands last year,” said SBA Atlantic & Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Steve Bulger.
“Moreover, record-breaking national numbers continue to be a boon to our small business community. The federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world; small businesses supply the U.S. government with the goods and services needed to operate,” he added.
One of the federal contracts went to NV Services, LLC, owned by Neysa Varela. Established in San Juan in 2013, Varela and Nestor Vale, both engineers, saw an opportunity in new, remodeling, maintenance and consulting construction services, in addition to the multiple contracting opportunities with the federal government as an 8(a) certified and WOSB firm.
Her objective has been to manage small and medium size industrial and commercial construction projects with the advantage of 27 years of experience in the Industry. Varela and Vale have managed more than $200 million in construction projects.
Her client portfolio features government and private entities including, U.S. Coast Guard, the Puerto Rico Army National Guard, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, Puerto Rico Methodist Church, Sanofi-Aventis Pharmaceutical, Ponderosa/ Bonanza Restaurants, and Sartorius Stedim Biotech, among others.
“Last year showed the tremendous positive impact government contracting can have on small businesses. Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands small businesses increased their revenues and customer base by selling to the United States government,” said María de los Ángeles de Jesús, acting district director for SBA Puerto Rico and USVI.
“The overall small business prime contracting goals have been established by Congress to ensure that small businesses get their fair share of federal contracts; and small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands performed quite well; more than 12% of small disadvantaged businesses were awarded almost $367,000 in federal contracts while well over 16% of women-owned small businesses were awarded $122 million,” she said.
“The last year was a perfect example of how federal government contracting has an undeniable positive impact on our economy. U.S. government contracts provide large amounts of capital to small businesses and help keep workers employed,” de Jesús added.
