Mark your calendars to meet Pennsylvania’s Authorized Trade Representatives!

Bringing the World is your opportunity to meet one-on-one with Pennsylvania’s global network of Authorized Trade Representatives. Discuss current and future business opportunities, learn about business development resources available to your company, and network at this unique event.

More details and registration will be available this summer. For more information or to be added to the event mailing list, contact Debbie Langan at dlangan@nepa-alliance.org or (570) 655-5581, ext. 233.

Constantino's Catering & Events Inc.

This month’s membership spotlight is Constantino's Catering & Events Inc. NEPA spoke with Lawrence Nicolais, Jr., President.

Constantino's Catering is a full-service catering and events company. They operate a full-service venue in Clarks Summit, in addition to their offsite catering operation which serves most of Northeastern PA. They are expanding to a second full-service venue, The Ridge at Maiolatesi, in March 2023 and are also opening Bailey's Cafe and Suites on Main in Dalton PA in late 2022.

Mr. Nicolais said, “First, we provide great food and plenty of it. We also provide staffing for front and back of the house. We can provide alcoholic beverage service to our catered events. We also include nonfood items such as linens, china, silverware, and glassware. We also provide coordination service for weddings and other high-profile events.”

They pride themselves on great service and high-quality catered foods. Constantino's Catering is available to help all organizations in our area with fundraising events and community awareness. They are happy to take the lead to accomplish successful events for the host and a great experience for their guests.

"We do pride ourselves in providing a service that the customer values at the end of the event. In a world of rising prices, we are focused on providing the highest quality experience for our customers and their guests. We feel that by doing it the right way, the customer can justify the expense in the end. Our personal attention, great communication, and friendly staff are just a few reasons customers keep coming back for their next event," Mr. Nicolais explained.

When ask about NEPA’s benefits, Mr. Nicolais stated, “NEPA Alliance has been very helpful to us over the years to gain affordable financing for our projects. During the pandemic, they were instrumental in helping us gain access to financing to sustain our business when our doors were closed and limited to business."

For more information visit constantinoscatering.com

The Get Connected program, an eCommerce program for small businesses to improve their website presence and increase online sales, is actively seeking applications. Information about the program and an application intake form is available here.

As part of the eligibility requirements, candidate firms must complete two online trainings that were developed by the Small Business Development Centers at The University of Scranton and Wilkes University. Registration for the first training is here. To be considered for the first come first serve program, please complete the application intake form and the first training. NEPA is grateful to the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development and the Lackawanna County Board of Commissioners for their continued financial support of this program. 

For additional information, contact Kurt Bauman at 570-891-4665 or Steve Zaricki at 570-891-4671 or 866-758-1929.

Our general annual membership starts at $275.

Need more information visit our membership hub or contact Donna Hritz at dhritz@nepa-alliance.org or call 570-891-4666.

To learn more about these loan programs, contact Stephen Ursich, Dave Nat, Donovan Klem, Ken Doolittle or James Urso at 570-655-5581 or 866-758-1929.

Financing Structure

To learn more about these loan programs, contact Stephen Ursich, Dave Nat, Donovan Klem, Ken Doolittle or James Urso at 570-655-5581 or 866-758-1929.

The U.S. Commercial Service’s Building Bridges to Global Markets brings no-cost, in-person exporting expertise to your community. Addressing issues most common to diverse businesses seeking international sales expansion, this series of events will introduce reliable contacts, accurate information, and ready-to-use resources that will place you firmly on the road to exporting success.

Join the U.S. Commercial Service of Philadelphia in Wilkes-Barre on July 27 to learn all about the essentials of exporting, trade finance, and federal export resources. You'll hear valuable insights from exporting experts and companies that have succeeded internationally.

During the day, you can also meet individually with U.S. Commercial Service staff and key local contacts from the Northeastern Pennsylvania Alliance, the Wilkes SBDC, the U.S. Small Business Administration, U.S. Export-Import Bank, the MidAtlantic District Export Council, and other organizations ready to help.

Please join us to learn:

The June 16th Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) Virtual Industry Day was another successful event for their industry partners to learn about the TYAD mission and to foster an open dialogue and information and idea exchange. The presentation slide decks from the event are now available.

The slide decks available include, but are not limited to:

These slide decks and others from TYAD Industry are available for your review on SAM.

After your review, if the PTAC Team can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at: 570-655-5581 and select option 2.

On June 8, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill, referred to as H.R. 7694, “Strengthening Subcontracting for Small Businesses Act of 2022” (the Bill). The Bill seeks to amend the Small Business Act by requiring federal agencies to more broadly consider the content of subcontracting plans and subcontracting plan performance when evaluating large businesses for federal contracts. If enacted, the Bill would encourage large businesses to subcontract more work to small businesses and to achieve their small business subcontracting goals.

As it stands currently, the Small Business Act requires that when evaluating offers from large businesses, federal agencies consider as significant factors, in certain circumstances: (1) the rate provided under the offeror’s subcontracting plan for small business participation and (2) when evaluating past performance, the extent to which the offeror attained its small business participation goals during performance. These requirements, however, are narrow in scope. Indeed, federal agencies are only instructed to consider these factors when evaluating offers for bundled contracts after the agency determines that the contract offers a “significant opportunity for subcontracting.”

The Bill broadens the application of these factors in two critical ways. First, the Bill requires that federal agencies consider these evaluation factors when evaluating offers for any contract that requires a subcontracting plan, and not simply for bundled contracts with a significant opportunity for subcontracting. Second, rather than simply requiring federal agencies to evaluate the rate of small business participation promoted in an offeror’s subcontracting plan, the Bill requires federal agencies to evaluate the description in the offeror’s subcontracting plan of the extent to which it proposes to use small business subcontractors, at any tier.

Although subcontracting can be an excellent opportunity for small businesses to enter and grow in the federal marketplace, there is concern in the industry that large businesses do not always achieve their small business goals and that when they fail to do so, small businesses are the ones that truly suffer. By requiring agencies, when evaluating any offer for a contract that requires a subcontracting plan (i.e., generally speaking, any contract to a large business with a value over $750,000 or $1.5 million for construction), to meaningfully consider the content of an offeror’s subcontracting plan—and not merely its aspirational goals—and the extent to which the offeror attained its small business goals in the past, the Bill provides much needed transparency and oversight in the area of small business subcontracting. Moreover, because the Bill makes subcontracting plans and subcontracting plan performance significant evaluation factors for large businesses, it should incentivize large businesses to meaningfully utilize small business subcontractors and to achieve their small business goals.

On May 25, 2022, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued a memorandum recognizing that contractors are not immune from the “period of unusually high” inflation. The memorandum, titled “Guidance on Inflation and Economic Price Adjustments,” provides guidelines on when relief from cost increases due to inflation is appropriate and provides considerations for the proper use of economic price adjustment (“EPA”) clauses when entering into new contracts.

For existing DoD contracts, whether contractors can get relief from inflation depends on the type of contract.

Cost Reimbursement Contracts: Because the Government bears the risk of increased costs under cost reimbursement contracts, the Government must bear the risk of the inflation costs and, upon notice, the Government may increase the contract funding to allow for continued performance. Further, the contractor has no duty to continue performance once it runs out of funding.

Fixed-Price Incentive Contracts: DoD states that the contractor’s actual costs are recognized up to the contract ceiling and to the extent the actual cost differs from the target cost, the target profit will be adjusted by application of the contract share ratio to the costs over or under the target cost.

Fixed-Price Contracts with Economic Price Adjustment: The EPA clause provides a mechanism to mitigate covered costs for both parties outside of the contractor’s control. For this type of contract, the Government will bear the cost risk up to the limit specified in the EPA clause.

After explaining the three situations where DoD contractors may be able to recover inflation costs, DoD states that “contractors performing under firm-fixed-price (FFP) contracts generally must bear the risk of cost increases, including those due to inflation.” This is not a surprising take from DoD. However, contractors with existing FFP contracts may be able to seek increased costs from any Government-directed changes or delays under, among other clauses, the Changes clause, Government Delay of Work clause, or the Suspension of Work clause.

For new contracts currently being developed or negotiated, DoD states that inclusion of an EPA clause may be an appropriate way to equitably balance risks between the government and the contractor. Rather than limiting the inclusion of EPA clauses to cost-type contracts, DoD states that including an EPA clause in an otherwise fixed-price contract can help balance inflation risks, encouraging contractors to accept fixed-price deals without factoring the worst-case projections about the unstable market conditions into proposals. DoD noted four additional guidelines for using EPA clauses in contracts.

First, indexes for any EPA clauses should follow “the cost components judged to be the most unstable” as industries are not feeling impacts of inflation equally.

Second, EPAs should not affect the contract profit.

Third, DoD should not use EPA clauses in short-term deals of a year or less.

Fourth, EPA clauses “will not be one-sided, but will be fair to both parties . . . [and will] allow for both upward and downward revision of the contract price with a specified ceiling and floor of the same magnitude.

DoD states that these guidelines are important to ensure that contract price adjustments are based on “pre-established formulas rather than simply reopening price negotiations.”

Thus, while contractors with existing firm-fixed-price contracts likely cannot get relief from cost increases due to inflation alone, contractors in the process of negotiating their contracts should push for inclusion of an EPA clause to balance the risks of inflation during performance.

The NEPA Alliance PTAC had our first Team member graduate from the Leadership Lackawanna Program, an affiliate of the Greater Scranton Chamber. Tyler Day, Government Procurement Specialist, was one of thirty-three graduates from this year’s class.

In addition to enhancing teamwork and problem-solving skills, students participated in a group project which develops resourcefulness and engenders a sense of accomplishment having a positive impact on the Community. Tyler, along with the project team he worked with, was involved with the revitalization of the Mercatili-Segilia Park located in Moosic, PA.

The Northeastern Pennsylvania Alliance (NEPA), designated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Schuylkill counties, approved its 2023-2026 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) on June 21, 2022. The TIP identifies the region’s highest priority transportation projects over a four-year period, as well as funding and a timeline for completing the projects. The TIP is updated every two years through a cooperative effort of local, state and federal agencies and includes participation by the general public.  The 2023-2026 TIP goes into effect on October 1, 2022. The TIP documents can be viewed here.

NEPA is currently scheduling in-person classes for Summer and Fall 2022. If you are interested in requesting a class for your municipality, please contact Daniel Yelito, Transportation Services Manager, NEPA Alliance at 570-891-4652 or email dyelito@nepa-alliance.org.

LTAP is also continuing to offer some courses, webinars and drop-in sessions in an online format. To learn more about upcoming virtual offerings, click here.

Don’t forget that NCAC Members receive access and assistance in accessing the Foundation Directory Online, the most comprehensive foundation database. With access to informative profiles of over 235,000 U.S. foundations, you’ll know exactly which foundation fits your programmatic needs, how much to ask for and where to go for more information. NCAC members can receive access to the Foundation Directory Online by visiting our in office workstation any time during normal business hours. Don’t forget that we’re here to help with all your nonprofit needs! For more information on this service, as well as membership benefits, contact Betsy Ardizoni, Community Services Manager for NCAC, at eardizoni@nepa-alliance.org or 570-891-4662.

Did you know that the U.S. Census Bureau has available Census Tract Reference Maps from the 2020 Census? To access the maps, click here. 

For additional information, contact Steve Zaricki at 570-891-4671 or 866-758-1929.