The head of the state Small Business Task Force said his group will give Gov. David Paterson about 20 recommendations “to change the climate of how the state deals with business.”
William Grinker, chairman of the 60-member task force created by the governor last summer, said the recently drafted recommendations are due Nov. 30. Paterson is expected to include some of them in his State of the State address in January, he said.
“There”™s a reputation this state has for being unfriendly to small business and business generally,” Grinker said in White Plains, where he was a panelist at the Access for Small Business Forum hosted by the Business and Labor Coalition of New York. There are 500,000 businesses in the state with fewer than 100 employees in each, he noted.
Grinker said the task force included 35 members from the private sector as well as state lawmakers and agency officials and the regional director of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Charged by the governor with developing new strategies to promote the growth and development of small business enterprises, members were limited by the state”™s $4 billion midyear budget deficit.
They could not seriously consider tax reductions for businesses and also could not add expenses to the state budget, Grinker said. “That makes the charge of the task force somewhat problematic,” he told an audience at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The task force chairman said key areas addressed include increasing access to capital, reducing red tape through regulatory reform and lowering health care costs for small businesses. Specific recommendations include:
? A new major small business loan fund.
? A seed capital fund for new business initiatives in conjunction with incubator space on SUNY campuses.
? Expanding eligibility for existing loan funds to offer debt refinancing.
? Expand a voluntary compliance system for regulations affecting small business.
? Create uniform definitions of employee and independent contractor across state agencies.
At the local level, White Plains Mayor-elect Adam Bradley in his keynote speech at the forum pledged to work with the city”™s business improvement district office and to create a public-private partnership to jointly focus on economic development and provide assistance to small businesses. He said he will work to make sure banking institutions in the city provide capital to those businesses.
Bradley, who had been shuttling from White Plains to Albany for a special session of the state Assembly, said he expects to inherit a city budget deficit of $15 million to $20 million when he moves to City Hall in January. He said he will not fill $1 million in administration jobs. “That”™s a start, and the type of effort I intend to make,” he said.
“These are difficult times and we are going to be working very, very hard to make sure that White Plains is business-friendly.”
