This is a guest post by Sam Finnerty of PilieroMazza PLLC, highlighting some upcoming changes to the SBA’s HUBZone program, a program that limits competition for certain contracts to businesses in historically underutilized business zones.
These changes were designed to keep investment flowing into HUBZones and make sure they don’t lose their HUBZone status just because things got better. We don’t want making things better to stop the investment train.
As always, consult an attorney about how these changes might apply to your business.
On November 12-13, 2019, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) hosted its 5th Annual Mentor Protégé Conference where SBA’s John Klein, Associate General Counsel for Procurement Law, answered questions from the audience regarding various mentor-protégé issues. Mr. Klein provided some key insights regarding recent and upcoming SBA rulemakings that will have a significant impact on small business government contractors.
On November 13, 2019,SBA sent a final rule to the Federal Register for publication that will implement comprehensive revisions to the regulations governing the Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Program. These revisions, as proposed in October 2018, are available here. A couple of the key changes are:
(1) an individual will continue to be treated as a HUBZone resident if that individual worked for the firm and resided in a HUBZone at the time the concern was certified or recertified as a HUBZone—even if the area where the individual lives no longer qualifies as a HUBZone or the individual has moved to a non-HUBZone area;
(2) HUBZone firms will only be required to certify on an annual basis, meaning such concerns will no longer be required to expressly qualify as a HUBZone at the time of each offer for a HUBZone contract and award.
In addition to the revisions proposed in October 2018, the final HUBZone rule will also implement a significant change to the regulations that was proposed during public comment. Specifically, the final rule will indicate that when a company buys an office located in a HUBZone or enters into a long-term, 10-year lease for such office space, intending the space to be its principal office, the concern will be able to meet the principal office HUBZone criterion for a period of at least 10 years—even if at some point after the property is purchased or leased, the office location no longer qualifies as a HUBZone. The idea behind this rule is that the HUBZone program should incentivize and reward companies that invest in HUBZones.
For more information on this and other topics impacting government contractors, please contact a member of PilieroMazza’s Government Contracts Group.
Samuel Finnerty, the author of this Client Alert, is a member of the Firm’s Government Contracts, Small Business Programs & Advisory Services, and Government Contracts Claims and Appeals practice groups.
This post originally appeared on the PilieroMazza blog at https://www.pilieromazza.com/this-just-in-sbas-implementation-of-hubzone-changes-and-small-business-runway-extension-act-coming-soon and was adapted and reprinted with permission.
