GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

October 26, 2011 

The Honorable Marlin A. Stutzman 

Chairman 

The Honorable Bruce L. Braley 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Bill Johnson 

Chairman 

The Honorable Joe Donnelly 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

House of Representatives 

Subject: Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Additional 

Improvements to Fraud Prevention Controls Are Needed 

This report formally transmits the briefing held with your staff on October 20, 2011 in 

response to a request from your subcommittees to evaluate the design of the Department of 

Veterans Affairs (VA) fraud prevention controls within the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned 

Small Business (SDVOSB) verification program instituted in response to Public Law 111-

275. (See enclosure for the briefing slides.) This work is part of our ongoing audit of the 

SDVOSB program governmentwide, which, in part, assesses the design of the three areas 

of a fraud prevention framework including preventive controls, detection and monitoring 

controls, and investigations and prosecutions. We will report the results of the larger audit at 

a later date. To conduct this work, we reviewed VA materials, including verification process 

guidelines, internal control policies, and Office of Inspector General (OIG) report, and 

interviewed VA officials. With the exception of undercover tests to assess initial screening 

controls of VA’s verification process, we did not test the effectiveness of VA’s fraud 

prevention controls or attempt to project the extent of fraud and abuse. 

In summary, VA’s fraud prevention controls for the SDVOSB program have improved since 

Public Law 111-275 was enacted including steps taken since your July 28, 2011 hearing; 

however, further enhancements would help to reduce the program’s vulnerability to fraud, 

waste, and abuse. VA has made progress in implementing a valid verification program with 

preventive controls to deter ineligible firms from attempting to become verified. VA 

enhanced deterrents and developed controls to identify firms in its VetBiz database that did 

not meet SDVOSB eligibility requirements, resulting, according to VA, in over 1,800 

ineligible firms being denied SDVOSB verification. However, even with the control 

enhancements, program weaknesses and vulnerabilities remain. While improvements in 

preventive controls have been significant, progress has been limited in the areas of 

detection and monitoring and investigations and prosecutions. VA’s monitoring and 
detection efforts, which now include status protests and announced site visits, lacked 

periodic compliance reviews and formal processes for unannounced site visits. Moreover, 

while VA established a debarment committee and is conducting ongoing investigations of 

suspicious firms, it does not yet have specific criteria in place to implement legislation 

requiring debarment actions for firms that misrepresent their SDVOSB eligibility. Thus there 

has been limited actual debarment action against firms found to have misrepresented their 

SDVOSB status. 

To address identified vulnerabilities, we recommend that VA take 13 actions in the three 

areas of the fraud prevention framework—preventive controls, detection and monitoring, and 

investigations and prosecutions—to provide reasonable assurance that the contracting 

opportunities meant for our nation’s service-disabled veteran entrepreneurs make it to the 

intended beneficiaries. Our recommendations are on pages 26 to 28 of the enclosure. 

In commenting orally on a draft of this briefing provided to VA on October 13, 2011, VA’s 

Executive Director of Small and Veteran Business Programs generally concurred with our 

recommendations. The Executive Director noted a number of significant additional actions 

planned and taken since the time of our site visits and in response to our ongoing 

discussions of our findings during the course of our work which, according to VA, address 

many of the identified vulnerabilities. For example, VA stated that it had formalized many 

processes related to referral of cases to OIG and debarment officials, and formalized 

processes for unannounced site visits to high-risk firms. VA also outlined actions that if 

substantiated by GAO, should address many of our recommendations. As part of our 

ongoing work, we will attempt to validate actions taken by VA to improve the design of its 

controls. A summary of VA’s oral comments are included on pages 29 to 33 of the 

enclosure. 

- - - - - 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, 

we plan no further distribution of this briefing until 30 days from the report date. At that time, 

we will send copies to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, appropriate congressional 

committees, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no 

charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have questions concerning this report, please contact me at (202) 512-

6722 or kutzg@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and 

Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

Gregory D. Kutz 

Director 

Forensic Audits and Investigative Service 

Enclosure 

Page 2 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program 
Enclosure 

Page 3 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Page 1

Briefing for the Subcommittees on Economic 

Opportunity and Oversight and Investigations, 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 

House of Representatives

Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned 

Small Business Program:

Additional Improvements to Fraud Prevention 

Controls Are Needed 

October 20, 2011
Enclosure 

Page 4 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Page 2

Contents

• Introduction

• Objective

• Scope and Methodology

• Background: GAO’s Fraud Prevention Framework

• Summary: Program Improvements and Vulnerabilities 

• Conclusions

• Recommendations for Executive Action

• Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

• Related GAO Products
Enclosure 

Page 5 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Page 3

Introduction

The SDVOSB Program

• Provides federal contracting opportunities for qualified firms 

• Awarded $10.8 billion in federal contracts governmentwide in fiscal year 

2010, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA) 

• Awarded $3.2 billion in Veterans Affairs (VA) contracts in fiscal year 

2010

• Includes more than15,000 self-certified Service-Disabled VeteranOwned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) in Central Contractor Registration 

(CCR)

• Includes more than 5,000 verified firms in VA’s VetBiz Vendor 

Information Pages as of October 2011
Enclosure 

Page 6 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Page 4

Introduction (cont.)

2006 Legislation 

• The Veterans Benefits, Heath Care, and Information Technology 

Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-461) required VA to: 

• Maintain a database of SDVOSBs and Veteran-Owned Small 

Businesses (VOSB)

• Use SDVOSB and VOSB set-aside and sole-source award 

authority only for SDVOSB and VOSB firms listed in the 

database

• Debar for a reasonable period of time, as determined by VA, 

firms that misrepresent SDVOSB and VOSB status
Enclosure 

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Page 5

Introduction (cont.)

Prior GAO Work

• Ineligible firms received about $100 million in SDVOSB contracts because of a 

lack of effective fraud prevention program (October 2009 - May 2010)

• Other than for VA’s, no governmentwide controls to validate a firm’s eligibility

• No validation of self-certified information

• The absence of continued monitoring of firm eligibility 

• Ineffective process of investigations and prosecutions

• VA made limited progress enacting an effective verification program (May 2010)

• In fiscal year 2009, according to VA, 25 percent of the contracts VA awarded using veteran preference authorities went to verified businesses

• As of May 2010, VA had verified about 2,900 businesses—14 percent of businesses in its mandated database of VOSBs and SDVOSBs

• Weaknesses in VA’s verification program included files missing required information, files missing explanations of how staff determined that control 

and ownership requirements had been met, and no guidance for referring cases of misrepresentation for investigation and enforcement actions

1. See Related GAO products at the end of this briefing.

1
Enclosure 

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Introduction (cont.)

VA Office of Inspector General Report

• Evaluated VA’s oversight of VOSB and SDVOSB programs under 

verification processes required by P.L. 109-461

• Found that VA awarded ineligible firms at least 1,400 contracts worth $500 million a year

• Projected that VA will award $2.5 billion to ineligible firms from 2011 

through 2015 without strengthening oversight and verification

• Recommended comprehensive program controls to help VA effectively 

administer the programs and meet federal and VA regulations 

2. VA Office of Inspector General, Office of Audits and Evaluations, Department of Veteran Affairs: Audit of Veteran-Owned 

and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Programs, Office of Audits and Evaluations, 10-02436-234 (July 

25, 2011).

Page 6

2
Enclosure 

Page 9 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Introduction (cont.)

Recent Legislation

• The Veterans Small Business Verification Act (section 104 of P.L. 

111-275) required VA to: 

• Verify firm eligibility 

• Request additional documentation substantiating veteran 

ownership and control of a firm

• The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-240) facilitates 

prosecution of firms that willfully seek and receive small business 

awards through misrepresentation of their status, including 

SDVOSBs

Page 7
Enclosure 

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Page 8

Objective

• GAO was asked to evaluate the design of VA’s fraud prevention 

controls within the SDVSOB verification program, including recent

VetBiz verification efforts, instituted in response to P.L. 111-275
Enclosure 

Page 11 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Scope and Methodology

• Reviewed applicable materials:

• GAO, Internal Control: Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999)

• GAO, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Fraud Prevention Controls Needed to Improve Program Integrity, GAO-10-740T 

(Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2010)

• Information provided by VA in response to recommendations in GAO,

Department of Veterans Affairs: Agency Has Exceeded Contracting Goals 

for Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, but It Faces Challenges with Its 

Verification Program, GAO-10-458 (Washington, D.C.: May 28, 2010)

• Reviewed VA’s Verification Process Guidelines

• Interviewed VA officials in July 2011 and reviewed related documents

• Reviewed selected VA internal control policies

• Reviewed recent VA Inspector General (OIG) report

• Conducted undercover tests to assess initial screening controls of an individual’s 

service-disabled veteran status within VA’s verification process

Page 9
Enclosure 

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Page 10

Scope and Methodology (cont.)

• Our assessment is part of an ongoing review of fraud prevention 

controls for the entire SDVOSB program. This briefing focuses on the 

design of VA’s SDVOSB verification controls within its Center for 

Veterans Enterprise (CVE) office. With the exception of undercover tests 

to assess initial screening controls, we did not test the effectiveness of 

VA’s fraud prevention controls or attempt to project the extent of fraud 

and abuse.

• We conducted this performance audit from July 2011 to October 2011 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Enclosure 

Page 13 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Page 11

Background: GAO’s Fraud Prevention Framework

• The fraud prevention framework provides an overview of how preventive 

controls would help screen out ineligible firms, and how monitoring controls and 

prosecutions can help further minimize the extent to which a program is 

vulnerable to fraud as described in previous GAO work, GAO-10-740T.

Potential fraud,

waste, and abuse

Potential fraud,

waste, and abuse Potential fraud

Lessons learned influence

future use of preventive controls

Detection and

monitoring

Preventive

controls

Investigations

and prosecutions
Enclosure 

Page 14 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Summary: Program Improvements and 

Vulnerabilities 

• VA’s fraud prevention controls for the SDVOSB program have improved

since P.L. 111-275 was enacted, but further enhancements could do 

more to reduce the program’s vulnerability in three areas

• Preventive controls

• Detection and monitoring

• Investigation and prosecution

• We are making recommendations to improve fraud prevention controls 

in the areas of prevention, detection and monitoring, and investigations

• In response to our findings and recommendations, VA generally 

concurred with our recommendations. In addition, VA outlined actions 

recently taken and planned in the future that, if substantiated, should 

address many of our identified vulnerabilities and related 

recommendations for improvement

Page 12
Enclosure 

Page 15 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Preventive Controls

Criteria

• Preventive controls are a key element of GAO’s fraud prevention 

framework and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government.

• These controls limit unauthorized access to program resources through 

front-end controls to prevent ineligible firms from being verified for

program participation. Such controls include the following:

• Competent personnel assigned to eligibility reviews

• Training on fraud awareness and prevention

• Verification of self reported information

• Coordination between agencies with key pieces of information

• Once contracts are awarded to ineligible contractors, recovery is 

uncertain and eligible firms lose the opportunity to receive the contract

Page 13
Enclosure 

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Page 14

Preventive Controls

Deterrents Enhanced

• VA enhanced deterrents to ineligible firms becoming verified through VetBiz

after P.L. 111-275:

• Established verification guidelines 

• Hired more CVE staff to conduct initial file reviews and site visits

• Created a quality control team to inspect a subset of initial file examination decisions

• Developed a risk assessment model for examining applications

• Updated data systems to reduce manual data entries

• Verified service-disabled veteran status in VA’s systems

• Allowed VA to prevent two fictitious ineligible SDVOSB applications submitted by GAO from being verified

• Conducted announced site visits at high-risk firms before approval

• Searched exact names for company and principal owners in the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS)

• According to VA, denied over 1,800 firms under new verification guidelines
Enclosure 

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Page 15

Preventive Controls

Vulnerabilities Remain

Even with enhancements, program weakness and vulnerabilities remain:

• No evaluation of CVE staff experience to assess whether appropriate personnel are available to perform application reviews

• No fraud awareness training for CVE staff and VA contracting officials

• No VetBiz training for VA contracting officials to provide reasonable assurance that SDVOSB contracts are awarded only to verified 

firms

• No checks for minority partners in EPLS searches

• No procedures for reusing information on SDVOSB firms and related parties that had applied for VetBiz verification but failed to 

pass the verification process to prevent individuals and fraudulent 

companies from repeated attempts at breaching VA controls 

• No formalized process for selecting high-risk companies for unannounced site visits 
Enclosure 

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Page 16

Preventive Controls

Vulnerabilities Remain (cont.)

• No mechanism for validating information with Internal Revenue 

Service (IRS) records to assess integrity of self-reported information

• No formal procedures and criteria for referring cases to VA OIG for further investigation, including those of applicants who appear to be acting fraudulently, withdraw their application after being informed of site visits or further scrutiny, or misrepresent their SDVOSB status 

• No sharing or publishing status protest decisions

• No request for denied companies to reassess their self-certified 

SDVOSB status in CCR

• No formalized procedures for considering prior SBA status protest decisions when evaluating SDVOSB applications
Enclosure 

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Detection and Monitoring

Criteria

• Detection and monitoring activities are discussed in GAO’s Standards for 

Internal Control in the Federal Government.

• These activities must involve active and continual monitoring to encourage 

continued compliance with program guidelines and continued firm eligibility

• Methods of fraud and abuse identified during monitoring can be used to prevent 

future fraud and abuse

• Specific detection and monitoring guidelines for the SDVOSB program include:

• Periodic reviews of SDVOSB firm program eligibility

• Data mining of contracts to determine compliance with North American 

Industry Classification System (NAICS) size standards

• Data mining of contract awards to identify suspicious contract awards 

compared to firms’ types of business

• Unannounced site visits to contract performance locations and discussions 

with VA contracting officials

Page 17
Enclosure 

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Page 18

Detection and Monitoring

Controls Enhanced

• VA developed some controls that may help identify firms in the 

VetBiz-verified database that do not meet SDVOSB eligibility 

requirements: 

• Reverification initiative designed to review previously verified 

SDVOSB firms under new P.L. 111-275 controls

• Protest process allows interested parties to protest firm status

• Random announced site visits of verified SDVOSB firms are 

conducted
Enclosure 

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Page 19

Detection and Monitoring

Vulnerabilities Remain

• Even with enhanced controls, certain weaknesses and 

vulnerabilities remain because of VA's focus on initial 

eligibility verification:

• No periodic reviews of monitoring firm’s compliance with NAICS size standards

• No contact with contracting officials to determine whether required percentage of work on SDVOSB contracts was performed

• No systematic data mining of existing contract awards for review and possible further inspection 

• No formalized process for selecting companies for unannounced site visits to contract performance locations and interviews with 

contracting officials 

• No formalized process for selecting verified companies for unannounced site visits to determine if the verification process is effective
Enclosure 

Page 22 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Investigations and Prosecutions

Criteria

• Investigations and prosecutions are the final elements of a comprehensive fraud 

prevention framework

• Those elements use the lessons learned from investigations and prosecutions to 

strengthen controls earlier in the process and improve the overall fraud 

prevention framework 

• The Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006 

requires that any business determined to have misrepresented its status as an 

SDVOSB shall be debarred from contracting for a reasonable period of time

• The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 facilitates prosecution of companies that 

willfully seek and receive small business awards through misrepresentation of 

their status, including SDVOSBs

• GAO’s fraud prevention framework and Standards for Internal Controls in the 

Federal Government encourage agencies to respond to identified abuse by:

• Referring serious matters to appropriate officials

• Maximizing the deterrent value of successful prosecutions and debarments

Page 20
Enclosure 

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Page 21

Investigations and Prosecutions

Debarments and Investigations Initiated 

• Some actions have been taken to debar firms violating SDVOSB 

program requirements, which should protect the government’s interest 

and help discourage ineligible firms from abusing the SDVOSB 

program. These include: 

• Institution of VA Debarment Committee in September 2010, 

established to debar firms violating SDVOSB regulations

• As of October 2011, one debarment of a firm and related individuals 

that have misrepresented their status as an SDVSOB as required, 

for a reasonable period of time, by P.L. 109-461

• Several other debarment actions pending or currently being litigated

• Approximately 70 referrals by CVE officials to VA OIG of potentially 

fraudulent actions taken by firms receiving SDVOSB contracts

• Ongoing investigations of suspicious SDVOSB firms
Enclosure 

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Page 22

Investigations and Prosecutions

Vulnerabilities Remain

• Even with enhanced actions to debar ineligible firms, certain 

weaknesses and vulnerabilities identified in the investigation and 

prosecution controls include:

• Minimal actual debarment of firms and related individuals for 

misrepresentation of eligibility

• No specific criteria or guidelines documenting how VA is implementing debarments for a reasonable period of time for 

misrepresentations as required by P.L. 109-461

• No specific procedures for referring companies to the Debarment Committee and VA OIG from CVE

• No specific procedures outlining the Debarment Committee’s decision process

• No policies for terminating contracts with ineligible firms (decisions are made on case-by-case basis) 

• No advertising of suspensions, debarments, or prosecutions of firms misrepresenting themselves as SDVOSBs to deter future fraud
Enclosure 

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Page 23

Conclusions

• VA has made progress in implementing a valid verification program to 

deter ineligible firms from attempting to become verified and receiving 

SDVSOB contracts rather than eligible firms 

• However, additional opportunities exist to make improvements, 

particularly in monitoring, detection, investigations and prosecutions

• VA does not have a process in place to implement specific legislation 

requiring debarment actions for firms that misrepresent their eligibility for 

the SDVOSB program, and VA has had limited success to date in 

pursuing debarment actions against firms found to have misrepresented 

their eligibility for the program

• With a comprehensive framework in place, VA can be more confident 

that the billions of dollars meant to provide VA contracting opportunities 

to our nation’s service-disabled veteran entrepreneurs make it to the 

intended beneficiaries 
Enclosure 

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Page 24

Recommendations for Executive Action

• To minimize the risk of fraud and abuse within VA’s SDVOSB 

program, we recommend that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs 

take the following 13 actions in three areas:

• Improve VA’s preventive controls to provide reasonable assurance that only eligible firms gain access to the VetBiz database. For Example:

• Provide regular fraud awareness training to CVE and VA contracting personnel

• Provide additional guidance and training to the VA contracting personnel on the use of the VetBiz website so that SDVOSB contracts are only awarded to verified firms

• Establish formal procedures for VA staff to refer suspicious applications to the OIG and provide guidance on what type of cases to refer to the OIG

• Explore the feasibility of validating applicants’ information with third parties, for example, requesting consent from SDVOSB applicants to validate tax information with the IRS to assess the accuracy of the information provided

• Formalize a process for conducting unannounced site visits to firms identified as 

high risk during the verification process
Enclosure 

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Page 25

Recommendations for Executive Action (cont.)

• Strengthen VA’s detection and monitoring controls on verified 

SDVOSB firms. For Example:

• Develop and implement procedures for conducting 

unannounced site visits to contract performance locations 

and interviews with contracting officials to better assess 

whether verified companies comply with program rules 

after verification

• Develop and implement a process for unannounced site 

visits to verified companies’ offices to obtain greater 

effectiveness and consistency in the verification program

• Develop procedures for risk-based periodic reviews of 

verified firms receiving contracts to assess compliance with 

NAICS size standards and SDVOSB program rules 
Enclosure 

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Page 26

Recommendations for Executive Action (cont.)

• Strengthen VA’s investigative and prosecutorial actions for firms violating SDVOSB program laws and regulations. For Example:

• Develop and implement specific processes and criteria for the Debarment Committee on compliance with the requirement in P.L. 109-

461 to debar, for a reasonable period of time, firms and related parties 

that misrepresent their SDVOSB status

• Develop and implement specific procedures and criteria for staff to make 

referrals to VA’s Debarment Committee and VA’s OIG as a result of 

misrepresentations identified during initial verification and periodic 

reviews

• Develop specific guidelines outlining the Debarment Committee’s decision process to debar firms that misrepresent their SDVOSB status

• Develop procedures on removing SDVOSB contracts from ineligible firms 

• Formalize procedures to advertise debarments and prosecutions
Enclosure 

Page 29 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

• We requested comments on a draft of this product from the 

Secretary of Veterans Affairs. On October 13, 2011, VA’s 

Executive Director of Small and Veteran Business Programs 

provided us with comments.

• VA generally concurred with our recommendations and noted a 

number of significant actions planned and/or taken since the time 

of our site visits and development of our findings which, 

according to VA, address many of the identified vulnerabilities.

• As part of this review, we have not substantiated actions reported 

by VA, but we plan to review the status of each reported action as 

part of our ongoing work.

Page 27
Enclosure 

Page 30 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Agency Comments (cont.)

• According to VA officials, VA has recently made improvements of 

VA’s preventive controls. For Example:

• Certified Fraud Examiner training is now required of CVE staff 

and most contractors assisting with application evaluation. 

Additionally, approximately 500 contracting officials have 

received VetBiz training

• VA established formal procedures to refer to the VA OIG 

SDVOSB applicants that provide a false statement or withheld 

material information

• VA established a process for checking minority owner 

information in EPLS

• VA established protocol for high risk applicants to 

automatically receive an unannounced site visit

Page 28
Enclosure 

Page 31 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Agency Comments (cont.)

• According to VA officials, VA has recently strengthened the 

agency’s monitoring and detection of verified SDVOSB firms. For 

Example:

• Announced site visits by VA officials assisted by contractors 

to determine percentage of work completed on SDVOSB 

contracts

• Unannounced visits to verified companies either randomly, or 

during the course of a high risk SDVOSB’s reverification

assessment 

• Evaluation of firms applying for VetBiz verification for 

compliance of NAICS codes, and consideration of NAICS size 

standards for contracts by VA contracting officials 

Page 29
Enclosure 

Page 32 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Agency Comments (cont).

• According to VA officials, VA recently strengthened the investigative and 

prosecutorial actions for firms violating SDVOSB program laws and 

regulations. For example:

• Created guidelines for CVE staff to refer firms misrepresenting their 

status to the Debarment Committee and VA OIG. Instructions for 

referrals made from outside CVE made public on Debarment 

Committee’s website

• Formalized Debarment Committee’s processes, criteria, and 

decision process and made information publicly available

• Published firm and associate names proposed for debarment or 

currently debarred on the Debarment Committee’s website and 

released information to the acquisition community

Page 30
Enclosure 

Page 33 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Agency Comments (cont).

• VA officials stated that progress is being made regarding investigations 

and prosecutions, however:

• Resource constraints on the Debarment Committee limit the number

of actions that may be taken due to the timeliness of the due 

process considerations 

• The Debarment Committee has been established for only 13 

months and the due process considerations take considerable time

• VA focuses investigative and debarment activities on willfully 

misrepresenting firms

Page 31
Enclosure 

Page 34 GAO-12-152R Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program

Appendix 

Related GAO Products 

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Preliminary Information on Actions Taken by Agencies to Address Fraud and Abuse and Remaining Vulnerabilities. GAO-11-589T. Washington, D.C.: July 28, 2011. 

• Department of Veterans Affairs: Agency Has Exceeded Contracting Goals for 

Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, but It Faces Challenges with Its Verification Program. GAO-10-458. Washington, D.C.: May 28, 2010.

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Fraud Prevention Controls Needed to Improve Program Integrity. GAO-10-740T. Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2010.

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Case Studies Show 

Fraud and Abuse Allowed Ineligible Firms to Obtain Millions of Dollars in 

Contracts. GAO-10-306T. Washington, D.C.: December 16, 2009.

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Case Studies Show 

Fraud and Abuse Allowed Ineligible Firms to Obtain Millions of Dollars in 

Contracts. GAO-10-255T. Washington, D.C.: November 19, 2009.

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program: Case Studies Show 

Fraud and Abuse Allowed Ineligible Firms to Obtain Millions of Dollars in 

Contracts. GAO-10-108. Washington, D.C.: October 23, 2009.

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