Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Small Business Development Centers/ President's State of the Union Speech/ Independent Contractors/ Survey

The President has signed the FY 14 budget and the good news is that the Small Business Development Centers, nationally have been given just over $113,600,000. This is a slight increase from this year and eliminates the sequestration cuts for the current year. As you may be aware the sequestration cut was 8%.

Now, what is important, is that California contributed money to help the California SBDCs  meet their SBA match. California is one of the few states in the country, if not the only state, that does not contribute to its SBDC program. 



The  President gave his  5th State of the Union speech last night. He says that this will be a year of action and that he will try to do more in taking Executive action. One of these actions is an increase in the minimum wage for Federal workers to $10.15. What did you think of the speech? Is the President heading in the right direction? Can he really do much with a gridlocked  Congress?



I have written in previous emails that Small Business California is looking to pass legislation that would standardize the definition of Independent Contractors in California. Right now there are multiple definitions between EDD, IRS, Labor, etc. This is a real problem for small businesses. Upon reflection  we have decided to wait until next session as we want to make sure we have labor and other business organizations in agreement with the final language. We are talking to labor and they seem interested in trying to work with us.

Next week Small Business California will be sending out its annual survey. We have done this every year since 2005 and have received responses from every county in California. The results of the survey are sent to every member of the Assembly, every State Senator, the Governor , Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and every House member. I hope you will take about 10 minutes to complete the survey and will forward it to your colleagues. You can see the results of past surveys by going to 
www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org and clicking on surveys.

 


Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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