SBDC funding bill gets first approval
By Ed Sealover, Denver Business Journal
The State of Colorado would [substantially increase] its funding for Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) across the state to $600,000 under a bill that a House committee approved on Tuesday.
The money would be used for start-up counseling and workshops aimed at growing new businesses.
House Bill 1129, sponsored by Rep. Max Tyler, D-Golden, would split the money among the 14 SBDCs operating in the state. Those centers now get about $2.5 million a year to work with entrepreneurs and small businesses to draw up business plans or analyze data that’s critical for their growth. But about $2.2 million of that comes from federal funds and matching money put up by local business groups.
Tyler said the funding is critical to creating small-business jobs. Kelly Manning, state director for the SBDC network in the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade , said nationwide studies have shown that businesses are 85 percent more likely to succeed if they go through SBDC courses.
Read full story here:
www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2012/02/21/sbdc-funding-bill-gets-first-approval.html
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Legislature kills measure to help business navigate regulations
By Ed Sealover, Denver Business Journal
A House committee killed a bill Wednesday that would have established a “navigator” at each state department to help businesses understand the regulatory requirements they must comply with in order to operate in Colorado.
State Rep. Max Tyler, D-Golden, said he got the idea for House Bill 1025 from the “pits and peeves” process that the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) conducted last year to discover regulations that business leaders felt were hindering their operations.
Business owners complained they had a hard time cutting through red tape and finding someone to explain to them what levels of compliance they needed to meet, Tyler told the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
“I know how to traverse that,” Tyler said of the state bureaucracy. “But the people in the business community of Colorado say they want help with that.”
See full story here: http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2012/02/08/legislature-kills-measure-to-help.html
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Candy exec Enstrom announces candidacy for HD 23
By Ben Conarck, The Colorado Statesman
Republican businessman Rick Enstrom’s entrance this week into the House District 23 race in Jefferson County against Democratic Rep. Max Tyler could decide which party controls the State House after the 2012 elections...
Tyler said that he had been expecting to draw a tough opponent.
“Last session, in 2010,” Tyler said, “I ran a race in a tightly targeted district where they were coming at me with full battle cruisers — and even imported someone into the district to run against me.”
Enstrom is a vocal critic of the so-called “Dirty Dozen,” a series of bills that Tyler and fellow Democrats passed in 2010, including a bill raising taxes on candy and soda sales. Enstrom opposed the tax increase in testimony before the Legislature.
His testimony proved controversial when he later told a Denver Post reporter that he had railed against the bill, claiming it would hurt his business, despite knowing that the tax would not affect the operations of Enstrom Candies...
Tyler is already challenging Enstrom on his business background, drawing a distinction between the experience of running a family-owned business and his own experiences in entrepreneurship.
“If Mr. Enstrom says he’s a small business person — he’s got a family business, more power to him,” Tyler said, “I’ve been a small business person for 35 years, and just in the last three years I’ve decided to give back to the community who supported me that whole time.”
Read full story here: http://coloradostatesman.com/content/993243-candy-exec-enstrom-announces-candidacy-hd-23
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Jobs, jobs, jobs, say Colorado legislators
By Scot Kersgaard, The Colorado Independent
Ask any Colorado legislator what they hope to accomplish in the upcoming session and they will tell you they want to create jobs, or help businesses create jobs, or remove regulatory impediments to job creation, or improve access to capital...
Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, is sponsoring a bill to increase funding for Colorado’s small business development centers, something he says is one of the state’s biggest job-creation success stories. With a general fund appropriation of less than $85,000, SBDCs served more than 5,000 businesses and created 1,400 jobs in 2010. According to a recent analysis, SBDCs are producing one job for every $9,000 invested.
Tyler said the bill would provide an additional $300,000 for the next two years, money he says is needed to draw federal matching funds.
He told The Colorado Independent that currently the state is leaving money on the table by not having enough funding to match all the federal money that is available.
“SBDCs help local, home-grown Colorado businesses succeed,” Tyler said. “These are the businesses that build a strong foundation for Colorado’s economy and Colorado’s future. Supplying these businesses with the resources they need to grow and hire more Coloradans is the entire goal of this bill.”
Richard Lewis was at the press conference to talk about the benefits of SBDC help in the launch and growth of RTL Networks, his Denver-based IT services company. RTL was on Inc. Magazine’s 2010 list of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States.
SBDCs “have a number of very useful programs and classes in everything from accounting to marketing to business planning,” Lewis said. “Many of my employees are still going to small business development centers for ongoing support.”
See full story here:
http://coloradoindependent.com/109699/jobs-jobs-jobs-say-colorado-legislators
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Renewable Advocates to Play Defense in 2012 Colorado Legislature
By Jerry Brown, Smart Energy Living
Renewable energy advocates don’t expect to get any substantial new legislation through the Colorado Legislature in 2012, several Democratic legislators said in early December.
“The speaker (Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch) has laid down his marker saying nothing new on renewables next year and the Republicans maintain tight control of their caucus,” Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, said in an interview. He earlier spoke on a panel at a Colorado Renewable Energy Society legislative day at the Capitol that also featured Democratic Reps. Claire Levy of Boulder and Rep. Randy Fischer of Fort Collins.
With Republicans holding a one-vote majority in the House and, according to Tyler, poised to kill all Democratic bills on renewable energy, there’s virtually no chance of any renewable-energy bills making it through the legislature, Tyler said. Other legislators at the CRES event agreed.
So, Tyler said, “we’ll be playing defense to keep the legislature from taking apart what we’ve already achieved.”
With Democrats in control of the Colorado Senate and a Democratic governor, there’s a pretty good chance the defensive posture will succeed.
“The Senate has been very stalwart,” Tyler said. “They’ve done a good job of blocking bills that go over from the House.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be any renewable energy bills introduced.
“There might be some bills to make a point and lay the groundwork for when we get the majority back again,” Tyler said. “I’ve got a couple things,” including a proposal to ensure that citizens’ voices are heard during Colorado Public Utilities Commission proceedings and one on water used by power plants.
CRES Executive Director Tony Frank agreed “we may not see any legislation passed nextyear, but you will see the stage being set to lay the groundwork for legislation that may pass later. And maybe we’ll be surprised. Maybe we’ll see some leadership to get something past the goal line. But it’s going to be tough if last year is any indication.”
There’s also likely to be a legislative fight over the Governor’s Energy Office, which enjoyed major success under former Gov. Bill Ritter.
The continuation of GEO will be one of CRES’s major focuses during the 2012 session, Frank said. He’s optimistic about the agency’s future. “Not by any means is it going away,” he said. “But we have work to do to see that it gets some funding.”
See original story here:
http://smartenergyliving.org/templates/featurestories.cfm?inewsid=52
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