Advocacy council makes health care a focus

'ONE OF THE STRENGTHS of this council ... is our ability to come up with a consensus on strategy,' Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts told the Small Business Advisory Council. /
'ONE OF THE STRENGTHS of this council ... is our ability to come up with a consensus on strategy,' Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts told the Small Business Advisory Council. /

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts opened the first Small Business Advocacy Council meeting of her term, on March 29, with a focus on health care and legislative initiatives.
She proposed the creation of a work group to focus on each, discuss issues in depth, make recommendations to the council and advocate for legislation before the General Assembly.
“I think one of the strengths of this council, because it brings together so many organizations, is our ability to come up with a consensus on strategy,” Roberts said. “I’m not saying that everybody is going to agree with everyone else, but to the extent that we find issues that we want to focus on and that this group can advocate for … I think that is very important.”
Health care will be at the top of the list as members will, for the first time, convene in a work group that addresses the issue. The group, called the Small Business Health Coordinating Council, will meet at 8:30 a.m. next Monday, April 16, at the State House.
Its purpose is to give small business owners a stronger voice in the discussion on health care, as it is the No. 1 issue affecting small businesses as identified by SBAC members in a survey Roberts’ office conducted prior to the meeting.
Roberts said it is amazing to her that the cost of providing health care for one employee can now equal what a business would spend on minimum wage for a new hire. But she warned new members of the group not to expect to solve the problem this legislative session.
“This is not a three- to six-month project,” she said.
Some responded by saying that the urgency of the health care situation requires something to be done right away.
“If we don’t do something – even a Band-Aid – this year the number of uninsured next year will cripple the state of Rhode Island,” said Sidney Goldman, president of Greylawn Foods, a refrigerated shipping and storage company in Cranston.
To that end, Roberts added she didn’t mean to say that nothing would come from efforts of the work group this year, only that the issue probably wouldn’t be solved.
“I have a real interest in looking at the possibility of regionalizing our health insurance market,” she said, “which I think has incredible potential, since we are basically a regional economy.”
The SBAC’s membership includes representatives from the state’s Chambers of Commerce, the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, the Rhode Island office of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the R.I. Small Business Development Center and businesses.
After hearing several SBAC members’ comments on the financial burden of fire codes implemented after The Station nightclub fire, Roberts decided that fire code compliance should be at the top of the legislative work group’s agenda. The group’s first meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. this Monday, April 9, at the State House.
“The fire code, I think, is threatening livelihoods,” said Jerry Meyer, executive director of the East Greenwich Chamber of Commerce, who also testified about the fire codes’ impact on East Greenwich businesses at the fire code hearings two weeks ago.
Mark Hayward, Rhode Island district director for the SBA, added similar comments. He said the sale of Lombardi’s 1025 Club in Johnston due to the $400,000 it would cost to make the building fire code-compliant is one example of the impact of the fire codes.
The banquet hall had received an SBA-backed 504 loan.
“It was a success story for Rhode Island,” Hayward said. “From a financial standpoint, people cannot afford to add additional debt [as a result of the fire code].”
Goldman said it’s time for small business owners’ financial concerns to be a priority for groups like the SBAC.
“At this time, we are well into our pockets,” he told SBAC members. “We are well into our reserves … you’re seeing the number of foreclosures on homes. The small business community is going to be next. Somehow the legislature has to understand the small business community doesn’t have any more dollars.”
To complement the efforts of the legislative work group – forms of which have existed since 2004 – Roberts said her staff will be working to compile a comprehensive list of bills that affect small business owners and post the list on her office’s Web site, www.ltgov.ri.gov.
“We are going to try to develop this as a resource for this community because it is, as you know, difficult to track legislation,” Roberts said.
There was also talk of holding special quarterly meetings after hours and at locations around the state to encourage small business owners to attend the meetings. In the survey of SBAC members, respondents had said business owners were not well-represented at past meetings.
Anthony Gemma, president of Gem Plumbing & Heating Co., said businesses would benefit from having a venue to share best practices, as he has seen elsewhere in the country.
“Sometimes I don’t see that here,” he said. “We have to realize as business owners that sharing is not a bad thing.”
Roberts replied that it could be an interesting role for the SBAC. But an even more important role for the SBAC, she said, will be to create an easier interface for small business owners to communicate with state and federal government.
“I feel very strongly that government should be a partner with the business community and that underlies a lot of what I think [the SBAC] needs to be focusing on,” Roberts said.

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