Time to make Delaware truly 'business-friendly'

In response to The News Journal's Feb. 22 editorial titled "Questions for Delaware's jobs future," we fully acknowledge that we, too, are seeking answers to the same. We believe it's long past due the time that the term "business-friendly" really start applying to Delaware.

As stated in the editorial, an important factor in obtaining and retaining jobs in the First State deals specifically with government's role, as it relates to both "its responsiveness and its costs." We wholeheartedly agree. We, too, want to know the answers to such questions as: "How much does it cost a business to open its doors in Delaware?" or "How long does it take (for a licensing agency)…to clear a business for operation or expansion?" For that reason, we, as members of the ad-hoc House Small Business Caucus, are actively working to find out from Delaware's small business employers what regulatory pitfalls or, hopefully, successes they may have encountered along the way.

Over the last couple of weeks, the Small Business Caucus has partnered with the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce and many of the local chambers at the municipal level in an effort to address the concerns of Delaware's small businesses regarding the state's regulatory process. These chambers have agreed to be part of a team effort aimed at soliciting feedback from our small business community about their regulatory concerns.

We are encouraging Delaware's small business owners to contact their local or state chamber of commerce with specific examples of what their experience has been when dealing with state agencies in order to acquire regulatory approval for a project. The kind of feedback we are asking employers to provide the House Small Business Caucus via the chambers should include the following information:

• Specific examples of how their approval process may have been hindered when getting from Point A to Point B;

• Specific suggestions of how the regulatory reform process can be improved;

• Specific examples of how recommendations made in Executive Order (EO) 36 Final Report (June 2013) have helped their industry;

• Specific examples of when their business received a positive outcome in dealing with a regulatory agency in order that the experience could be shared and possibly duplicated by other businesses in the future;

Any other information pertaining to how the overall regulatory process can be improved for the business community.

We are aware that discussions are also being held within the Executive Branch on how Executive Order 36 can be improved and, as that process unfolds, we want to make sure we have current information from those businesses which are directly impacted.

We believe that the chambers can serve as independent middle entities for any business owner who may not be comfortable sharing their regulatory concerns with us directly. We have also asked the chambers to follow-up with their members on their own to replicate this request. The credibility that each chamber brings will be a critical part to success. Small businesses do not need to limit their responses to just a couple of concerns but are encouraged to detail all their complaints. We have also stressed how important it is to hear employers' recommendations on how to resolve the issues that are being raised.

Finally, we want to set the record straight on another issue that was mentioned in the opinion article pertaining to the relationship between the municipal governments and businesses.

It was stated that the delays in getting approval for projects are occurring mainly at the municipal level. However, that's not entirely true. In fact, we've heard that the regulatory delays and red tape that many of the businesses have experienced actually take place at the state agency level. We can recount examples of several situations, especially downstate, where a business wants to expand or make improvements to their operation and it's a major state agency that comes in with costly regulatory requirements, ultimately killing the project.

And, in the northern part of the state, New Castle County's Uniform Development Code has often been cited as an impediment to starting or expanding a business in a reasonable time frame. These are the real-life situations we want to work to fix in order to improve the economy. We also hope the proposed changes that result can be put into law to ensure the efforts started a couple of years ago by a non-binding Executive Order will continue beyond the current administration.

Please join us at the House Small Business Caucus' March 19th meeting in Dover to discuss the feedback our employers have been giving to the state and local chambers. The meeting will be held at 11:30 a.m. in Room 112 of the Tatnall Building.

By partnering together with our local businesses and chambers of commerce, we will have the best detailed list of regulation issues that can drive results.

State Rep. Danny Short respresents the 39th Dristrict in the House of Representatives. He is co-chairman of the House Small Business Caucus. Rep. Mike Ramone represents the 21st District. He is a member of the caucus.