New agency helps businesses understand, navigate state's red tape

There is a new resource available to small businesses confused or bogged down by state rules and the process for making them.

The Small Business Regulatory Review Board (SBRRB) is operating one year after a state law established it to help reduce the negative impact of regulations on small businesses.

Advertisement

The board � made up of representatives from state agencies, small businesses and the Legislature �reviews existing rules that affect small businesses and examines pending regulations.

"It is a lot of spade work right now," said Department of Commerce deputy secretary David Storey, who is on the board. "We're just trying to get our water wings."

One of the board's jobs is to review proposed rules after they're generated by state agencies but before they go to a public hearing. It has the authority to ask for changes to rules it finds overly burdensome to small businesses.

"What we're trying to do is make agencies accountable for following the law that already requires them to take small business into consideration when they create rules and regulations," said Rick Petershack, the board's chairman. "We're also trying to perform an outreach function so people get to know more about the fact we exist and there is a law in existence that's there to try and help small business."

Petershack is an attorney who runs his own family business, Civility Press Ltd., and has advised small-business owners for two decades.

"State rules and regulations make things harder for them to operate than need be," he said.

Wisconsin's law defines a small business as being independently owned and operated and employing 25 or fewer full-time employees or having gross annual sales of less than $5 million.

But small businesses with questions or concerns about state rules won't always get the answers they want. The board's role is to act as an advocate for small businesses, not to make policy or find ways for them to bypass compliance, Storey said.

"It's not a hall pass. We're not going to let these guys off the hook," he said.

Storey said he expects the board to focus on new rules at first but as small businesses learn about its existence, he expects more of them to seek reviews of rules that are already on the books.

The board also helps small businesses understand the rule-making process and have a say in how regulations turn out.

"The small-business community is just not equipped to respond to the rule-making process like the larger companies are," Storey said.

The legislation that created the review board also appointed a small-business ombudsman in the Department of Commerce as well as a coordinator within each state agency to act as a contact person for small businesses regarding regulatory concerns and rule-making activities.

The new law also allows for judicial review of penalties that result from actions a small business takes because of inaccurate or inconsistent information received from a state agency.

Information is available to small businesses that want to get involved. The ombudsman publishes "Wisconsin Regulatory Alert," a monthly report about rules state agencies are developing that may affect small businesses.

The state is also in the process of creating a Web site with information about proposed rules from state agencies that would affect small businesses.

Petershack said the board has discovered it needs to be more proactive and work with the small-business ombudsman to get proposed rules in hand before they continue on in the process.

"The agencies are still not at the point where they fully appreciate what rules should be reviewed by us," he said.