Alaska Native-owned companies risk losing their right to participate in Small Business Administration 8(a) contracting if they don't step in and become part of the process. This is something we are not willing to passively let happen.
Last week, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., CIRI and Doyon Ltd. submitted proposed reforms to the 8(a) program to the U.S. Small Business Administration. The proposal is the culmination of years of work, discussion and dissent about how to improve on the successes of an 8(a) program that benefits many Alaska Native corporations, their shareholders and their communities.
Our Alaska Native community includes many voices extolling the virtues and benefits of 8(a). On this, we stand together. The financial and societal impacts of Alaska Native corporations and their 8(a) companies cannot be overstated. Profits and other benefits are shared with thousands of shareholders, not just a few business owners, many of whom live in the most remote and underserved regions of the country. Participation in the 8(a) program has helped Alaska Native companies diversify their business models, transform our state's economy and invest to train and educate current and future generations of shareholders.
But the status quo won't hold. Increased scrutiny of Alaska Native government contracting is shifting the tides in our nation's capital, and Alaska Native corporations must take action to ensure they have access to 8(a) now and for generations to come. We proposed these changes because we heard the calls for competition, transparency and accountability, and they made sense.
Our proposed reforms will increase accountability and decrease the potential for abuse while maintaining the program's goal to encourage the growth of sustainable businesses that directly improve the livelihood of socially and economically disadvantaged populations.
We seek to promote competition for large government contracts, with a cap of $100 million on 8(a) sole source awards, and prohibiting non-competitive contracts from being rolled over between affiliated entities.
We want to strengthen enforcement and sanctions against companies that repeatedly violate program requirements.
And we support requiring Alaska Native 8(a) companies to track and report how 8(a) contracting benefits the communities the companies were created to serve.
Alaska Native corporations use 8(a) as one of many tools to fulfill the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act's mission to be engines of economic and social development, and we firmly believe that it should remain a priority of the federal government.
But ANCSA is about opportunity, not entitlement. ANCSA created Alaska Native corporations so they could stand on their own and empower their shareholders with participation in the state and national economy. Unlike other businesses, Alaska Native corporations must focus their goals to provide shareholder value to thousands of owners in perpetuity.
Everything improves with age. Over the past 40 years, Alaska Native corporations have helped reshape Alaska's economy and improve hundreds of thousands of lives. The business opportunities afforded by 8(a) are part of that development, but times are changing. Without participating in the reform process, Alaska Native-owned 8(a) companies risk losing the right to participate in the program. It is our responsibility, to our shareholders, our businesses, and our futures, to improve 8(a) before it is taken away.
Rex A. Rock Sr. is president and chief executive officer of ASRC. Margaret L. Brown is president and chief executive officer of CIRI. Norman L. Phillips Jr. is president and chief executive officer of Doyon Ltd.
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