A Deltek analysis of federal contracting activity found that the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Agriculture spent the most on prime contracts with small businesses during fiscal 2015.
Kyra Russell, a Deltek principal research analyst, wrote in a blog entry posted Thursday the five departments collectively accounted for nearly 80 percent of eligible small business contract awards by the government over the past three fiscal years.
The research company found DoD exceeded its small business contracting goals for fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2015.
However, a decline in the amount of small business contracting funds at DoD during those two fiscal years reduced department’s spending goal by $17.9 billion last fiscal year to about $213.4 billion, Russell noted.
She added the VA, HHS, DHS and USDA increased the amounts of contracting dollars obligated to small businesses from fiscal 2012 to fiscal 2015.
Deltek used data from the government-run Small Business Dashboard website for the company’s analysis.