News
Federal Announcements and Updates
As changes are made to the employment requirements under federal contracts by actions of the administration or congress, Pillar updates its material in a timely fashion. The changes (or possible changes being considered) for the current year are reflected below with some commentary on each. A full discussion of each subject is contained in Pillar’s Employment Requirements of Federal Contractors and Subcontractors.
Increased Statutory Acquisition Thresholds
On July 2, 2020, the acquisition councils published a final rule incorporating into the FAR the statutory changes (by the NDAAs for 2018, 2019) for the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (SAT) and Micro-Purchase Threshold (MPT).
2020 SCA H&W Benefit Rate / Reduced Rate for Contracts with Paid Sick Leave
OFCCP Early Reconciliation Procedures – Initial Results
On June 29, 2020, the OFCCP announced impressive results from the first year and a half of ERCAs (Early Resolution Conciliation Agreements) reached through the process set out in Directive 2019-02, see Pillar’s Blog.
Form EEO-1 Summary Compensation Data, Part IV
On June 9, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed the EEOC’s appeal of a previous District Court Order (ordering collection of Component 2 data) as “moot” after the District Court had previously declared the Component 2 data collection complete (February 10, 2020) – in other words there was no more controversy to decide.
CARES Act Authorization for Expanded Leave Costs for Certain Contractor Employees
The CARES Act (March 27, 2020) Section 3610, authorized agencies to use funds from any appropriations act to supplement contract payments to reimburse for expanded leave payments to contractor employees, made to keep a contractor’s workforce in a “ready state,” for those contractors whose employees are prevented by any shut-down order due to COVID-19, from accessing their contractor designated and government approved place of work, and are unable to telework.
VEVRAA Hiring benchmark changed to 5.7%
Effective March 31, 2020, the national hiring benchmark (which is equal to the BLS’ calculation of veterans nationally in the civilian workforce for the previous year), is 5.7%.