
The FAR Revolution: Three Proposed Procurement Reforms Every Contractor Should Watch
The FAR Revolution: Three Proposed Procurement Reforms Every Contractor Should Watch
Air date/time: August 20th, 2025 @ 1:00 PM Eastern Time
The Office of Management and Budget has sent Congress 16 major procurement reform proposals that could significantly change how the federal government buys goods and services. While all 16 are important, in this episode of GovCon Roundup Live, Carroll Bernard and co-host Steven Koprince will focus on three of the most critical for small businesses.
- Streamlining Compliance and Competition Procedural Requirements – This proposal would raise the Simplified Acquisition Threshold for commercial products and services in phases from $250,000 to $10 million over five years, and increase the limits for Special Simplified Procedures from $5 million to $50 million in the same timeframe. The goal is to streamline compliance, reduce competition-related procedural burdens, and speed time to mission.
- Common Sense Procedures for Small Purchases – This proposal would raise the Micro Purchase Threshold in phases from $10,000 to $100,000 over five years, removing government-unique barriers for the smallest buys while keeping the Buy American Act in place to ensure domestic sourcing remains a priority for buyers and sellers.
- Task and Delivery Order Protest Threshold Parity – This proposal would increase the protest threshold for task and delivery orders under multiple-award contracts from $10 million to $35 million for civilian agencies, matching the Department of Defense’s threshold, which was most recently raised in 2024.
We will discuss why these proposals matter, their potential impact on small business access to federal opportunities, and what steps contractors can take now to prepare and make their voices heard.
Speakers
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Carroll BernardCEO & Co-Founder, Govology
Carroll Bernard is the CEO and Co-Founder of Govology.com. He has an extensive background in government contracting, resulting from his experience as a government buyer, a small business contractor, and a procurement advisor.
Carroll started his acquisition career in the U.S. Navy Supply Corps, where he provided logistical support and acquisition management as a Supply Officer. After leaving active duty, Carroll continued his acquisition career in the Procurement Services Department of the City of Vancouver, WA, and later as a warranted Contracting Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Carroll’s last federal employment was at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), where he served as a Business Development Specialist for 8(a) companies in the Business Development Program. He also served as the SBA Portland District’s Veteran Business Development Officer and Primary HUBZone Liaison. Through his duties at the SBA, Carroll became a subject matter expert in small business programs, federal certifications, the SBA Mentor-Protégé Program, teaming, and small business contracting with federal agencies.
After his career in the federal government, Carroll supported small businesses in government contracting as a Procurement Counselor with the Defense Logistics Agency’s Procurement Technical Assistant Program (now Department of Defense APEX Accelerator), established to expand the number of companies capable of participating in government contracts.
Carroll has supported vendor outreach, education, and success in many ways. In 2015, Carroll and his team at Govology launched a world-class online training platform for government contractors. Since then, they have trained over 20,000 business professionals and saved small businesses millions of dollars through their collaborative partnerships with non-profit organizations, government agencies, universities, and corporations that share their mission and passion for powering up small businesses. As a result, Carroll and his wife, Elena Bernard, PhD, were named 2020 Small Business Champions by the U.S. Small Business Administration. -
Steven KoprinceFaculty Instructor and Legal Analyst, Govology
Steven J. Koprince is a Faculty Instructor and Legal Analyst at Govology. Before joining Govology, Steven founded and served as the Managing Partner of Koprince McCall Pottroff LLC, a law firm devoted exclusively to providing comprehensive legal services to federal government contractors.
Steven is the author of The Small-Business Guide to Government Contracts (AMACOM Books, 2012) and co-author three GovCon Handbooks providing in-depth information on discrete government contracting topics. Steven also founded the blog SmallGovCon (smallgovcon.com), where he has written more than 1,100 posts on government contracting legal issues. Steven has been quoted in several national news outlets and has appeared on numerous radio programs and podcasts. A frequent featured speaker at the national conferences of the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers, Steven was honored as a “Friend of APTAC” at the Spring 2016 APTAC National Conference.
In addition to his work for Govology, Steven volunteers for and serves as a Director of a nonprofit organization providing wrap-around services to disadvantaged families. He is also a co-founder and Director of a nonprofit organization promoting the great sport of pickleball in Lawrence and the surrounding area.
Steven is a graduate of Duke University and the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary. Steven lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two children and two cuddly cats.
Steven welcomes APEX Accelerator counselors to contact him by email at skoprince@govology.com and connect with him on LinkedIn.
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