According to the U. S. Small Business administration, small firms in Rhode Island made up 96.1 percent of the state’s employers in 2008. Small businesses totaled 95,845 and, of these, 24,824 were employers. Sherri Lynn Carrera, small-business ombudsman at the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, has been working to help small business since before she joined the EDC in 2005. Her role has taken on added importance this year with state leaders, including the governor and legislature, seemingly intent on reforming regulations and taking other steps to help small business.
PBN: What is your top priority as small-business ombudsman?
CARRERA: To make it easier for businesses to succeed in Rhode Island basically by making the regulatory and permitting process transparent. We’re working on cutting down the time it takes for an application to either be approved or denied. … To create a business-friendly climate is going to be crucial to moving Rhode Island’s economy ahead.
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PBN: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing small business?
CARRERA: They don’t have the resources that bigger businesses have, where a bigger business could engage an attorney or a CPA to help them through the process. We’re here to help them – hopefully help them start or expand their business – and basically facilitate a discussion between the state agency and the business owner.
PBN: How can a business protect itself from the economic turmoil at the national and/or state level?
CARRERA: Inevitably every business is affected by the national economy in either good times or bad times. We have to be sure that the businesses have access to the right tools so that they can weather the storm and capitalize on opportunities during prosperous times.
PBN: What would be the right tools?
PBN: Tell me about the status of the state fire code? Would you recommend that there be revisions in 2012, as a group of Newport small-business owners are requesting?
CARRERA: Let me tell you what we’re recommending for regulations as a whole, and then I’ll get back to the fire code.
Every state agency has to refile all of its regulations by June 20, 2012, so we’re working with groups … and we’re also looking at regulatory reform with state directors to look at the regulations that are on the books now, see what can be streamlined, maybe what could be [phased out], maybe some suggestions for new legislation in the upcoming session. …
We have been working with the state fire marshal’s office and, as far as the fire code, it’s education and the fire marshal says the board is willing to work with business owners to make it less onerous on them.
PBN: Well, [the Newport business owners] haven’t always been happy with that [response]. So you’re saying we don’t need any revisions?
CARRERA: I’m not saying we don’t need any revisions. In the case of the Newport business owners, and I don’t want to get into details that would compromise the confidentiality of those business owners, but it was just that there was some misinformation and once that information has been clarified, the businesses are happy and the state fire marshal is going down there, I believe in October, and they’re going to take a look at those businesses and see how they can make the fire code easier for them to comply with.
CARRERA: One thing that we do through the Office of Regulatory Reform [within EDC] is enforce the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which basically means that any new regulation that a state agency promulgates comes to our office first. We take a look at those regulations and we have an opportunity to weigh in on whether they’re going to have an adverse impact on small businesses. In a few cases, we have made some great changes by meeting with the department before the regulation is even heard at a public hearing and they’ve [the departments] made the changes to make it less strenuous on business. … We’ve been doing this since 2006. … By law, we have 15 days [to conduct the review]. … Every once in a while, we get one that’s not business-friendly and we try to resolve that before it goes to a public hearing.
PBN: Many people, perhaps without thinking, tend to criticize EDC for not doing enough to help small business. How do you answer?
CARRERA: It’s just miscommunication. We have some incredible tools with the small-business loan fund, the Every Company Counts program [and] work force development. In the five or six years I’ve been here, through the Every Company Counts program, we’ve probably helped more than 3,000 small-business owners. There are workshops, one-on-one consultations and, just in this past year with regulatory reform – the office has only been up and running for a year – we’ve probably helped about 48 businesses. •
INTERVIEW
Sherri Lynn Carrera
POSITION: Small-business ombudsman, R.I. Economic Development Corporation
BACKGROUND: She began working for state government 18 years ago when she joined the staff of former Secretary of State Barbara Leonard in 1993. She was responsible for various duties, such as scheduling and constituent services, becoming deputy director of the First Stop Business Information Center. She came to EDC in 2005, working for the Every Company Counts small-business initiative until 2010, when she became ombudsman.
EDUCATION: Bachelor of science degree in advertising and marketing, Rhode Island College, 1992
FIRST JOB: At the age of 16, nursing assistant at a nursing home in Cranston
RESIDENCE: North Providence
AGE: 42
