As you may know, the VA’s Center for Verification and Evaluation (“CVE”), which deems firms to be service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (“SDVOSBs”) or veteran-owned small businesses (“VOSBs”) for purposes of competing for set-aside contracts issued by the VA, recently announced that it’s implementing a three-year verification rule. It’s simple: March 21 and beyond, get in the program, get three years instead of two.
Now, however, the CVE has announced that everyone already in VetBiz gets the three years. If you check out your profile, the expiration date isn’t a mistake – you’ve been extended for another year.
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this change is likely due to the CVE drowning in the backlog created by its new, convoluted and inefficient process that was implemented in September. (The CVE claims the backlog is due to the Kingdomware decision, but how many companies can really have jumped on the bandwagon after that? Most companies affected are already in VetBiz. And at any rate, shouldn’t the CVE have increased the number of examiners and taken reasonable measures to deal with an influx?).
If you are listed in the VetBiz registry, here is what you should know, based on your verification status:
- If you have submitted your reverification application but no one has contacted you yet (i.e., you have not yet been assigned an examiner), you don’t need to do anything. You will be administratively withdrawn and an extra year applied to your verification. (Just make sure you check your profile to confirm the new date).
- If you have submitted your reverification application and a case analyst has contacted you, you may go through the reverification process and receive your new three-year period. However, if you don’t feel like putting yourself through the trouble right now, you can withdraw and take advantage of having another year.
- If you are in VetBiz and are not yet up for reverification, your verification period has been extended for another year.
- If you have applied for VetBiz for the first time, you will be verified for three years assuming your application is successful.
Here is the VA’s publication on the new three-year period. (Interestingly, while this affects every single business in VetBiz, it is my understanding that no email will be sent out to alert business owners). If you have thoughts on the new three-year period or comments to share about your experience with the CVE (especially if you have encountered the new process, post September 2016), please comment below. Upon request, I am happy to make your comment anonymous or to substitute your name with a handle.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll continue to keep you posted with further changes that affect veteran-owned businesses!
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The gift horse also bites! Our CVE expiration date was March 26, 2017, so we submitted early. Rather than approve our application, they gave us until 2018, so we must resubmit everything, updated, all over again.
Interesting article and cute horse at the end! Is the horse yours?
Ha, no! It’s a horse with a bow on it. . . Get it? (See title). 🙂