This is a follow-up to the joint OFPP/SBA memorandum of July 28, 1998, entitled "Streamlined Acquisition of Services from Small Businesses Under the Simplified Acquisition Threshold." The memorandum established a pilot program that encourages agencies to consider issuing class waivers from the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) synopsis requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) when acquiring services between $25,000 and $100,000 from small businesses.

To date, we have concurred in 15 waivers from the CBD synopsis requirements. Our concurrences state that the agency's waiver determination should remain in effect for no more than two years. Because concurrences were granted on different dates, and this is a pilot program, we are now establishing a uniform end date for all waiver concurrences. We have determined that date should be June 30, 2001. Accordingly, all concurrences that will expire before June 30, 2001, are hereby extended through that date. Any concurrences that would otherwise continue beyond June 30, 2001, are hereby modified to end on that date. This assumes that agencies will continue to apply their waivers in accordance with the determinations and circumstances described in the original OFPP/SBA waiver concurrences. In addition, we will not consider any new requests for waiver concurrences after December 31, 1999.

The June 30, 2001, end date is designed to allow us to continue to collect data for the pilot program through FY 2000, and to provide time to analyze the data and formulate recommendations. The December 31, 1999, cut-off for new waiver concurrence requests is intended to ensure that all agencies in the pilot program participate for a sufficient time to provide adequate data for analysis.

As we have previously advised you, with your help, we will be analyzing FY 99 data against baseline FY 98 data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) to determine if there has been a decrease in the number of task orders between $25,000 and $100,000 awarded to large businesses and an increase in new definitive contracts and simplified acquisitions awarded to small, small disadvantaged, and women-owned small businesses as a result of the waiver. The FPDS sent you the baseline data on May 18, 1999. We expect the FY 99 data to be available for analysis by January 2000. After the analysis is complete, we may find that changes to the pilot program are warranted. We will, of course, notify you if any changes are made.

Key dates for the pilot program are as follows:

• December 31, 1999: Cut-off date for submission of new waiver concurrence requests.
  
  
• January 2000: Analyze data for FY 99 data against FY 98 data and determine whether any changes to the pilot are needed,
  
  
• January 2001: Analyze FY 00 data against FY 99 and FY 98 data.
  
  
• June 2001: Issue recommendations based on data analysis and experience with the pilot program.
  
  
• June 30, 2001: Expiration date for all existing waiver concurrences.