Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Small Business Compliance (5)

With its January 25^th decision in SuperShuttle DFW Inc., the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) altered its stance on the independent contractor standard. In a 3-1 vote, the NLRB amended its previous decision in FedEx Home Delivery (2014), asserting that a worker’s classification under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) should depend largely on the traditional common-law standard rather than economic factors.

The 2018 EEO-1 reporting deadline, originally set for March 31, 2019, has been extended to May 31, 2019 due to the recent government shutdown. The EEOC, which planned to open the 2018 EEO-1 filing website during the second or third week of January 2019, closed its offices during the shutdown, and is now expected to launch in March. As employers wait for the filing website to launch, they may want to proactively gather employment data from the fourth quarter of 2018 so they will be prepared to file their EEO-1 report in a timely manner.

In the last article, I talked about some of the early considerations for beginning the path toward your first government contract.  I would encourage you to take a look here before diving in on the next major question to answer when pursuing your first government contract.  That question is: 

For over a decade I’ve had the opportunity to work with many contractors pursuing their first government contract.  In my role as the VP of Special Projects at Redstone GCI many companies that I routinely assist are in the process of acquiring their first contract or in the very early stages of contract performance.  While I do work with small businesses going through the process of initial contract pursuit and mature government contractors, most companies that I work with are larger commercial or international companies.  I like to think of the role that our team provides as a voice of reason providing a measured approach to compliance to ensure the costs for barriers to entry (e.g. DFARS Business Systems) into the U.S. federal market are recoverable by the company. 

We’re almost through October and 2019 will be here before we know it. This is a great time to review your company’s year-end and new year checklists for compliance. Want to be sure those frightful DOL ghosts and OFCCP goblins don’t come after you?   Keep these checklist items in mind:

We have recently had to deal with issues related to DCAA applying DFARS business system rules in DFARS 252.242-7006 Accounting System Administration in its evaluation of small business client accounting systems. The DFARS business system rules were never intended to be applied to small businesses. Further, the limited resources of a small business make it very difficult for a small business to fully comply with all 18 of the specific criteria contained in the business system rules. DFARS 252.242-7005 regarding the applicability of the business system rules states:

Quite often, in practice, we see contractors classifying too much cost as IR&D or more commonly, B&P expense.  In a proposal setting, experts from across your company support the development of a compliant proposal.  The question we see frequently is: “Who should be charging to B&P Projects?”  While a business may want to capture the total cost of a proposal effort, including administrative support from G&A staff, it is not wise to have these personnel charge to a B&P project where their labor will absorb overhead. 

Organizational Conflicts of interest have increasingly gained attention from the Government and Government contractors.  Organizational Conflicts of Interest (OCI) are discussed in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 9.5.  OCI rules are meant to prevent conflicting roles or unfair competitive advantage in government contracting.  Assessment of OCI is very fact specific, and mitigations should be sculpted to fit your contracts and situation. 

We have received a number of inquiries from clients related to cost allowability for Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). In this Part II, we focus on the cost allowability rules and regulations for government contractors (Part I provided a more general description of ESOPs).

Many small and medium sized companies wonder if having an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is right for their company’s compensation and ownership structure.  Studies show that employee-owned companies benefit from higher worker productivity and certain tax advantages which ultimately result in improved cash flow.  These and other potential advantages could apply to government contractors; however, if you are considering implementing an ESOP, consider engaging someone (or an entity) familiar with ESOPs, as well as someone familiar with the cost allowability (regulations) and DCAA interpretations.