PETALUMA, CA–(Marketwired – Aug 30, 2013) – Friday, August 30, will be Small Business Administrator Karen Mills’ last day on the job. She resigned over six months ago and yet President Obama has not named a successor. President Obama’s failure to name a successor has led many to believe he may try to close the agency to cover up the widespread fraud and abuse that was uncovered during Mills tenure.
During Mills’ term at the SBA, the minimum 23 percent federal small business contracting goal was never met. Federal contracting goals for woman-owned firms, Service Disabled Veteran-Owned small businesses, minority-owned and HUBZone small businesses were rarely or never met.
During Mills’ leadership at the SBA, rampant fraud and abuse was uncovered in every program managed by the SBA.
Every year of Mills’ term at the SBA, the SBA Office of Inspector General named the diversion of federal small business contracts to some of the largest corporate giants in the world as the number one problem at the SBA. Mills refused to take any action to address the widespread fraud and abuse.
In fact, the diversion of federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses escalated during Mills’ tenure. According to the most recent data from the Federal Procurement Data System, of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts, 71 are currently large businesses.
Some of the firms the Mills led SBA included in their small business contracting data included, Rolls Royce, British Aerospace, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Chevron, Apple, General Electric, Verizon, Costco, Wells Fargo, Home Depot, Microsoft, Johnson Johnson, Dell, Intel, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Sears, DuPont, Delta Airlines, United Technologies and Russian owned international arms dealer Rosoboronexport. In 2012, General Dynamics, with 92,000 employees and $31 billion in annual revenue, received over $215 million in federal small business contracts.
ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN have all reported on the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.
On July 29, the Washington Post uncovered the fact that the SBA had fraudulently inflated the actual percentage of federal contracts awarded to small business by under reporting the actual federal acquisition budget by over $115 billion and including billions of dollars in contracts to corporate giants.
After investigating the Mills led SBA, the Government Accountability Office essentially accused the SBA of encouraging fraud in report 10-108 that stated, “By failing to hold firms accountable, SBA and contracting agencies have sent a message to the contracting community that there is no punishment or consequences for committing fraud.”
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Lacie Schwarz
American Small Business League
(707) 789-9575
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