News

It is time for federal contractors’ third filing this year – the 2022 VETS-4212. Contractors and subcontractors (regardless of tier or number of employees) who have a current contract covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) or had a covered contract as of January 1, 2022, must file a VETS-4212 report by September 30, 2022. The filing database opened August 1, 2022; the filing window for the 2022 report is August 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022. Contractors should file well before the deadline because the database often has trouble processing the large number of filings that usually occur the last week in September.

Important points about VEVRAA and the VETS-4212 filing include:
 

• VEVRAA applies to a single contract of $150,000, a master contract with purchase orders that equal $150,000, or a modification of a contract or master purchase agreement for the purchase, sale, or use of goods or services (including construction) between any person or entity and a “department, agency, establishment, or instrumentality of the United States Government, including any wholly owned Government corporation.” VEVRAA also applies to subcontracts under a contract with the government at the aforementioned amount.
   
• The government takes the position that “banks, financial institutions, and private sector FDIC insureds” are covered “if they have a single contract that meets the dollar threshold, including agreements to serve as funds depositors, agreements for federal share and deposit insurance, and agreements to serve as issuing and paying agencies for U.S. savings bonds and notes.”
   
• Companies should carefully review their status to determine if they are a covered contractor. The filing database is made available to Federal Contracting Officers. Contracting Officers are prohibited from expending funds or entering into contracts with companies that were required to file a VETS-4212 the prior year but did not submit a report. In addition, in a compliance review the OFCCP usually requires contractors to provide VETS-4212 reports for the prior three years.
   
• When filing the VETS-4212 report contractors have two choices for the snapshot date. Contractors may use a date between July 1, 2022, and August 31, 2022, that represents the end of a payroll period, or they may use December 31, 2021. For the remaining data, contractors should use the 12-month period immediately preceding the date of their snapshot. For example, a contractor using August 15, 2022, for the snapshot would report on all hires during the period August 16, 2021 through August 15, 2022, and report on the maximum and minimum number of employees during that time period.
   
• Companies that have not recently reviewed and confirmed that they have assigned the correct EEO-1/VETS-4212 codes to their jobs should consider doing so before filing the VETS-4212 report. While the OFCCP continues to provide information on their methods of evaluating compensation during a compliance review, where there are small groups of similarly situated people, the agency uses other factors, such as job groups or EEO-1 categories to roll groups together to form a group large enough for a regression analysis. While we would urge contractors to contest any grouping of positions that are not sufficiently similarly situated, making sure the EEO-1 categories assigned to each job properly reflect current job duties may decrease the chances of an adverse finding and makes the utilization analysis in the AAPs more meaningful.
   
• FAQs about the VETS-4212 report can be found here. A sample VETS-4212 form can be found here.

If you have any questions about the VETS-4212 report, including determining if your company is required to file a report, what employees need to be included, or how to account for various locations, or would like help preparing the filing, please contact one of the authors.