Small Businesses

Small businesses are an important driver of the nation’s economic growth. The Small Business Administration (SBA) oversees programs that provide small businesses and entrepreneurs with counseling and training, access to capital and federal contracts, and disaster assistance. In addition, SBA provided more than $1 trillion in relief funds to assist small business affected by COVID-19. Other agencies provide assistance to small businesses, such as through contracting, and research and innovation opportunities. 

However, there are a number of additional opportunities to improve how SBA and other federal agencies implement and oversee programs to assist small businesses. 

For instance: 

• Fraud. Some of SBA’s COVID funds went to fraudsters—the Department of Justice charged hundreds of individuals and is investigating many more. SBA has not had timely access to some external data sources—such as tax data—that could help prevent fraud. Additionally, SBA could better coordinate with its Office of Inspector General (OIG) on referring likely fraudulent applications for OIG investigation. SBA’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs—which aim to help small businesses bring new technologies to market—are also vulnerable to fraud.
• Disaster assistance. SBA’s Disaster Loan Program helps small businesses, homeowners, and renters rebuild or replace damaged property or continue business operations during disasters. Some communities may face barriers in accessing the recovery assistance that SBA and other federal agencies provide, such as rural communities. SBA should assess gaps in loan outcomes in underserved communities and ensure that outreach materials are consistent across regions. SBA could also enhance their procedures and data collection to ensure that the benefits they provide do not duplicate other forms of assistance. In addition, the sharing of tax data to help ensure loans go to eligible borrowers could be more efficient if SBA were authorized to receive tax data directly from IRS, or if it used new technologies to reduce manual processing. 
• Overpayments. Early in the pandemic, federal agencies prioritized swiftly distributing funds and implementing new programs to help businesses and individuals adversely affected by COVID-19. While this swift response helped meet urgent needs, it involved trade-offs that put billions of dollars at increased risk for improper payments, including overpayments. SBA could improve its processes for identifying and recovering overpayments.
• Improving opportunities for small businesses. Federal agencies with procurement powers are required to establish an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization to advocate for small businesses and fulfill a number of related requirements. However, agencies varied in how they complied with these requirements. Agencies such as the Department of Defense and National Nuclear Security Administration can also improve their efforts to contract with small businesses. SBA could also improve its oversight of how other agencies determine the economic impact of their rulemaking on small businesses.
• Assistance to tribes. SBA is one of many federal agencies that provide assistance to tribal entities for economic development. But these programs might be hard to identify or access, leaving tribal entities to miss out on valuable support. SBA, in coordination with tribes, should establish a plan for periodically analyzing and publicly reporting the amount of economic development assistance provided by SBA to tribal entities. 
• Veterans. The Small Business Act seeks to improve small businesses’ access to capital. The act provides for special consideration for small businesses owned by veterans to participate in SBA lending programs, but SBA does not have policies and procedures for complying with those requirements. Additionally, veterans’ business outreach centers, which state and local agencies and other eligible organizations operate, help veteran-owned businesses access capital. SBA requires these centers to submit quarterly performance reports, but some of these reports did not include all the required information, such as the number of counseling sessions. By developing procedures for ensuring compliance with reporting requirements, SBA would have better information with which to oversee these centers.
• Subcontracts. Certain federal contracts that go to large businesses must have small business subcontracting plans. Under these plans, contractors have to make a good-faith effort to offer subcontracting opportunities to small businesses. Agencies are supposed to notify SBA representatives about proposed contracts with these plans for possible review. However, agencies can’t always provide data to show if this happened. Agencies also didn’t ensure that contractors submitted subcontracting reports, or that the reports were accurate.
• Technology. SBA’s contracting assistance programs promote small business participation in federal contracting. SBA relied on several IT systems to check that businesses are—and remain—eligible for its contracting assistance programs and is working to streamline them into a single system. However, SBA doesn't have a project cybersecurity risk management plan and didn't trace design elements of the new system to related cybersecurity requirements. In addition, SBA is required to publicly report on specific scenarios in which it has used AI—including how it was designed, developed, and procured—which it hasn't consistently done.