Staff Writer
HOULTON — The Joint Standing Committee on Business, Research and Economic Development (BRED) invited members of the public to attend a special hearing last Wednesday to discuss numerous factors that are affecting business owners today and what Legislative representatives can do to make things better. District 8 Rep. Richard Cleary said numerous issues were raised to the committee and the most common one related to how others perceive business in Maine. It wasn’t a good perception, he said, but it was something that he felt the committee needed to direct focus on and make some changes.
“A couple of things that really strike me is the perception for a lot of folks is that Maine is bad for business and we definitely need to do a better job in promoting the good things,” he explained. “It’s important that the Legislature do things to make business better, and that they do a better job letting people know what they are doing.”
Miscommunication or lack of it has often been the cause of problems for small business owners looking to benefit from programs offered by the state. Being caught in the paperwork process has been another cause. Rep. Cleary said these points were also brought up during the hearing, but he noted that the Legislature has already begun to shorten the process for some programs already.
“There is tax on equipment,” he explained. “People would replace equipment, pay the tax and then have to fill out forms in order to be reimbursed. So we moved to just do away with the tax instead of collecting the tax.
“When you do away with it, you do away with the forms and the whole process and businesses weren’t fully informed that that was happening,” he said.
Of course, lack of access to high speed Internet was also another issue raised. Rep. Cleary said there are grants available to help with the infrastructure for that, however, he added that the whole state was competing for those Connect Maine grants.
“It’s a competitive bid process,” said Rep. Cleary. “There were around $2 million in bid applications.”
Rep. Cleary also noted that other issues raised during the meeting were outside of his committee’s jurisdiction, such as health care costs, however, it still helped to know what those issues were so that the committee could go back and convene with fellow legislators on the matter.
“We’ll put it together in a work session to focus on which committees we need to approach to work together and address separate issues,” he said.
Another key topic was workforce training. In northern parts of the county, some business people expressed the need for more training, but the means to do that was not available to them. Rep. Cleary said that was something that could be explored.
“There are some programs, but there is a lot of process and procedures, regulations and technical requirements to help employers train employees that really needs to be streamlined so that the opportunities are there for employees to get the training they need,” he explained.
The group still has another three meetings to attend throughout the state.
The BRED committee is responsible for business regulation, overseeing key economic planning and development agencies, working with technology centers and tourism and innovative businesses.
The next meetings or locations have not been scheduled.
