PROVIDENCE – Gov. Donald L. Carcieri and other state leaders convened at the State Room this morning to mark his signing of a legislative package designed to bolster small businesses in Rhode Island.
The laws enacted Tuesday include a measure creating a $125 million loan guaranty program whereby the state will guarantee loans to qualified small businesses, and a $240,000 appropriation to strengthen work force development efforts at the Community College of Rhode Island.
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Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed said the new legislation resulted from “months of collaboration” between the executive branch, the legislature and the state’s small business community.
A key component was the Senate Task Force on Small Business Growth and Development, created a year ago by Paiva Weed, D-Newport, and chaired by Sen. Erin P. Lynch, D-Warwick, the Senate president said.
House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, recalled that as a youngster growing up in the Mount Hope section of Providence, “life was good” for him and his five siblings when his father had a job. “When a family is working, when a family has good jobs, everything good follows,” Fox said.
Fox also emphasized the need to shore up CCRI’s work force development program because the two-year community college often is “the first entry point” for Rhode Islanders seeking higher education.
Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis cited the unusual level of cooperation that the small businesses legislation elicited from state leaders. “I have never seen leaders come together so fast to embrace something they knew would be good for Rhode Island,” he said.
As a result of the legislation, Mollis’ office is receiving $250,000 that will allow him and his staff to continue work on a web-based master application for requests to state agencies.
Referring to the steamy heat in the ornate State Room, Rep. Patricia A. Serpa, D-West Warwick, who chaired a House committee on small business, said she and her colleagues could do nothing to change the climate in the crowded room Tuesday, but the legislation that became law this morning will “reset the [business] climate in this state.”
The legislative package comprised 10 separate measures addressing, among other things: a faster time frame (15 days instead of 90) for approval of plans relating to fire alarms and related systems; a 60-day status report on occupational license applications; the appointment of small business representatives to the R.I. State Apprenticeship Council and to four of the 12 seats on the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s board; the creation of a regulatory reform office within the EDC to study oher ways to streamline the permitting process; and, as part of the bill authorizing the $125 million loan guarantee program, the creation of a Procurement Assistance Program within the EDC to help local businesses win government contracts.
Additional information is available at ri.gov and makingbusinesseasyri.com.
