Meanwhile, many local firms that want to work with the government say they continue to meet with frustration. Kendall Prewett said he has been trying for weeks to get government subcontracting work for his Mississippi-based debris removal firm, B & P Enterprises, but that neither the government nor the prime contractor, Florida-based AshBritt Inc., is returning his calls. "I don't understand why all these people not from here are working, and the Mississippi contractors aren't," he said.
AshBritt referred requests for comment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which said it is encouraging the award of subcontracting work to local companies.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) last week asked for a federal investigation into a no-bid, mobile classrooms contract awarded to an out-of-state company that is subcontracting much of the work. He said the job could have been done directly by an in-state firm for roughly half the price.
Thompson said many small firms risk going out of business if they don't get work in the reconstruction. "All of these things being done in the name of speeding things up are going to end up having an adverse effect on the recovery," he said.
The Institute for Business and Home Safety, an insurance industry trade group, estimates that 25 percent of businesses that close during a disaster will not reopen.
There are signs the government is trying to do more to funnel contracts to small firms. FEMA has begun holding outreach events, and the Homeland Security Department is referring companies to its Web site, http://www.dhs.gov/openforbusiness , for more information about obtaining contracts. It also says it is encouraging prime contractors to use local firms.
The Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group Inc., which has about 18,000 employees and $3 billion in revenue, has emerged as the largest local prime contractor involved in Hurricane Katrina relief. In addition to helping build temporary housing for displaced residents, the company has a contract to help repair levees and to pump water out of New Orleans.
The company is subcontracting "a very high percentage" of its work, said spokesman Chris D. Sammons. More than 80 percent of the subcontractors are from Louisiana and about 60 percent are small businesses, he said. "Our guys are the managing engineer types -- they plan the work, they oversee the work, they write the specs," Sammons said. But subcontractors execute a lot of the actual work, he said.
For example, Sammons said, Shaw hired Louisiana firms Boh Brothers Construction Co. LLC and Cajun Constructors Inc. Another major Katrina contractor, Halliburton Co., is using subcontractors heavily, with 76 percent of them coming from Louisiana or Mississippi, according to spokeswoman Melissa Norcross.
Even so, the overall small percentage of contracts with local firms "suggests a lack of advance planning to tap local small business partners in an effective disaster response strategy," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who chairs the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement.
