SSA awards Anchorage's Koniag IT Systems $2 million for print work in Durham and Baltimore

The Social Security Administration has obligated roughly $2.06 million across two print contracts to Anchorage-based Koniag IT Systems, LLC. The company received $1,275,759 for print and mail services at the SSA Print Mail Facility in Baltimore (award 28321326C00060011) and $781,125 for the same work at the agency's Durham facility (award 28321326C00060012). Both contracts cover printing and inserting Social Security cards and public notices, and both run from Aug. 31, 2026, to Aug. 31, 2027. USAspending.gov notes that postings lag the actual award by two to six weeks.

Federal records do not say whether either contract came through the 8(a) program, the Small Business Act set-aside amended in 1986 to let Native corporations and tribes hold federal contracts without full and open competition. Koniag IT Systems is a subsidiary of Koniag, Inc., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation for the Kodiak area. The recipient is listed in Anchorage, though the contracted work itself is assigned to SSA facilities in Baltimore and Durham; the corporation's location and the location of its labor are separate facts, and the gap between them is the crux of a broader debate over what these contracts return to Alaska.

A Commonwealth North review found that Alaska's 12 Native regional corporations reported combined 2022 revenue of $13.5 billion, roughly two-thirds of it earned outside the state, and that the corporations distribute between $300 million and $350 million annually through dividends, elder benefits and scholarships.

At a Commonwealth North panel in Anchorage, Kevin Berry asked: "if this work is happening in the lower 48 or globally and employees are based there, what does it have to do with us?"

The 8(a) program itself is in flux. The Small Business Administration has stalled new applications from Alaska Native corporation subsidiaries, while a rule effective Sept. 10 removes the social-disadvantage presumption for individually owned firms; entity-owned firms, including Native corporations, remain eligible.

Koniag subsidiaries have taken at least two other recent federal awards: a $1,261,920 Indian Health Service billing contract and $314,270 in State Department writer-editor work.