SenatorSteveGoss.com

Roundtable on Small Businesses and Jobs

Steve Goss

State Senator Steve Goss announced today that a group of state officials will come to the area to learn first hand about the barriers that small businesses face in these difficult times. Featuring small business persons and entrepreneurs from the region, the meeting will focus on local people sharing their ideas on what the state might do to enable them to make their businesses more sustainable and consequently to be able to add new employees to their payrolls. The roundtable discussion will occur on Wednesday, April 21 over a dutch treat luncheon at the Brushy Mountain Smokehouse in North Wilkesboro.

Visiting state officials will include NC Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary Dale Carroll and Commissioner for Small Businesses Scott Daughtery. Daugherty will represent the Governor’s office after an earlier commitment by the Lieutenant Governor to participate was postponed due to a scheduling conflict. The roundtable is open to the public by prior reservation on a space available basis. Existing small businesses will be given priority.

The visit grows out of a dinner discussion hosted by Senator Goss with small business people in February. At that dinner, small business leaders with employees ranging from 3 to 150 shared challenges which they face attempting to keep their businesses afloat. Several of them mentioned the number of employees they have had to lay off in the past two years. Problems identified included excessive paper work requirements, restrictions of services available to the self employed, excessive local and state government restrictions on access to biddable projects, and inadequate broad band access in the region.

Goss explained, “I was struck by how these people were confronted with obstacle after obstacle in trying to compete and expand their operations. My conclusion after this discussion was that while state and local communities have focused on recruiting the ‘silver bullet’ of a new business with a large number of new jobs, we seem to be overlooking the fact that these big catches are few and have sometimes proved to be undependable. We seem to be paying too little attention to actions which would keep the jobs provided by existing businesses and how we might encourage expansion of jobs by our local businesses and entrepreneurs.”

“Just consider the impact in the region if just one half of the 15,000 plus firms recorded by the last census in our district were to create one new job each! Around 7,500 new jobs in the region far exceed any projected import of a single big employer that any of us have ever heard of,” Goss said. “Our objective in this luncheon discussion is to explore ideas from the grass roots for how to promote home grown jobs and to keep the jobs we have,” he concluded.

The round table discussion is expected to be the first in a series to be held around the district which includes Alexander, Ashe, Watauga and Wilkes Counties. A follow up visit to the region by NC Banking Commissioner Joe Smith, which will address the lack of capital and credit challenges for small businesses, is scheduled for May 28th .

Existing small business owners and those aspiring to create a business are invited to indicate their intent to attend the dutch treat luncheon by calling (919) 733-5742 or (336) 973 7839. On line reservations may be made by going to http://www.senatorstevegoss.com/contact. The luncheon is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 21 at the Brushy Mountain Smokehouse in North Wilkesboro. (Map link: http://tinyurl.com/y9szdmc)

The Senate and House have both passed the state budget, and Governor Perdue has signed it into law — on time and in place for the start of the new Fiscal Year for the first time since 2003. I believe the budget is a thorough blueprint for our state as we come out of this awful recession and keeps us on track for the recovery. It helps small businesses, protects classroom teachers, supports our community colleges and universities, and prepares us for the future.

First, let me tell you what’s not in it: no pay cuts or pay raises, no mandated furloughs, no mass layoffs, and no new tax increases. In the aftermath of the Great Recession and historic budget shortfalls, that was quite a feat.

CUTTING SPENDING
This budget takes us back to 2006-2007 levels at under $19 billion. We have made difficult cuts — we’ve cut spending by $800 million in this budget and we’ve identified another $518 million in cuts if Congress does not come through with their federal health care matching funds. In all, the budget has been cut by around $3 billion over the last two years without even taking into account the federal recovery funds that helped us protect education and health care for the needy.

SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESSES AND CREATING JOBS
The budget includes a tax credit for 125,000 small businesses (most of which have less than 10 employees) that employ 500,000 people in our state. It lowers the cost of maintaining and adding jobs in North Carolina for the next two years by allowing a refundable income tax credit to a small business equal to 25% of the amount it paid in unemployment insurance tax on wages paid to employees.

The budget also includes:
• Loans to help small businesses keep their doors open and funds to help small businesses leverage federal entrepreneur grants
• Restores funds for Small Business Centers at 58 community colleges, which supports the development of new businesses and the growth of existing businesses by being a community-based provider of training, counseling, and resource information
• Builds the “In-source NC” database to help NC companies find and use other NC companies for supplies and services

PROTECTING EDUCATION

The budget works to protect classroom teachers and minimize cuts to K-12 education. We were able to protect an estimated 1,700 teaching positions by adjusting the Education Lottery receipts budgeted for classroom teachers.

It also:

• Provides funding for handheld diagnostic devises, giving teachers a high-tech tool for measuring student progress.
• Preserves recurring funding for dropout prevention grants
• Fully funds enrollment growth at community colleges, which has grown by over 30,000 students this year alone
• Fully funds enrollment growth at universities, and removes any proposed cap on enrollment
• Provides $33 million for community colleges to purchase vital health, science, engineering, and technology equipment

PROVIDING FOR THE PEOPLE OF OUR STATE
• Helps working families with health insurance costs; adds 2,750 more kids to Health Choice for a total of 137,789 children
• Restores damaging cuts to the mental health system
• Continues North Carolina’s landmark per year investment in cancer research
• Statewide expansion of CJLEADS, a new data system to track probationers

We have worked well with our counterparts in the House, and this is truly a compromise budget where, in most cases, we met in the middle. In North Carolina, we have a long tradition of being a state where people want to live and work, to raise their families, and to retire. The priorities we fund help shape that quality of life. Even in the toughest of times, we have come together to craft a budget that is, I believe, a strong and appropriate plan to lead our state into brighter days.

The full budget is here:
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S897v8.pdf

The spending and reduction summaries:
http://www.ncleg.net/sessions/2009/budget/2010/SB897_Joint%20Conference%20Committee%20Report%2006-28-10.pdf

As always, please don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts on the budget or any other issue you feel is important and thank you for the opportunity to serve you in the Senate.

Goss to Amend Reports (Sep-28-2009)

Goss Appointed Transportation Oversight Co-Chair (Sep-24-2009)

Visitors Center Funded (Sep-04-2009)

Health Care in the High Country (Jul-16-2009)

Goss Receives National Guard Medal of Merit (Jun-20-2009)

Goss Appointed to Chair Legislative Ethics Committee (May-12-2009)

Goss Urges Attention to Eligibility for Earned Income Tax Credit (Feb-03-2009)

Veterans Survival Guide for Veterans and Families (Jan-19-2009)

Pond Mountain Preserved (Nov-12-2008)

Authorized and Paid for by Steve Goss for NC Senate