Last week, SSTI reported the draft SBIR Reauthorization bill circulated by the House Small Business Committee in mid-March included language that would reauthorize the Federal & State Technology Partnership (FAST) for two years at its current $10 million level. FAST was created with the 2000 SBIR reauthorization and received appropriations through the Small Business Administration (SBA) for three of the next four years.
In its first iteration between 2000-2004, FAST received mixed reviews. It could be made better through the present reauthorization process. Before that, however, an important and often overlooked point must be made: there is little to no criticism with the underlying concept or mission of FAST to provide financial support to state and local efforts to promote the federal SBIR program and improve the quality of small business participation in SBIR across the country.
That lack of criticism can easily be attributed to the fact that promotion of the opportunities afforded small tech firms through SBIR and the provision of high-quality proposal development assistance does make a difference in the number of competitive proposals received from the geographic area served by the outreach and assistance efforts. In its assessment of the SBIR program, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that despite the small dollar amounts of the FAST awards, the short-lived program did appear to make a difference.
FAST did develop a sizable collection of critics, however, including many grantees. The situation after the first three funding cycles was so dire, in fact, that there was little fight for appropriations in fiscal year 2005 when the Administration did not request more funding. FAST has remained on the books as an unfunded Small Business Administration (SBA) program ever since.
The conclusion: good idea, poorly executed.
In February 2008, SSTI convened conference calls with its core state members to develop suggestions regarding how FAST could be improved. Past criticisms essentially could be divided into two groups: 1.) variable quality of FAST grantee service delivery and performance; and 2.) administrative/oversight issues at SBA. There are easy and affordable ways to address each set of concerns.
In this issue of the Digest, we highlight some recommendations addressing the first group of concerns dealing with grantee quality, including: