When it comes to helping small businesses navigate the complexities of complying with state government regulations, few people are better equipped to do so than Ruth Miles.
Miles spent nine years working in the office Oregon State Rep. Bruce Hanna. Prior to that, she was a small business owner for nearly 20 years. Now she runs the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office of Small Business Advocate and was in Hermiston this week to shed some light on what the newly-created office does for small businesses and state agencies alike.
“What do I do? I cut red tape. That’s what I do,” Miles said during an appearance at the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce. “I know that every minute you spend in a transaction with a state agency is a minute that you are not making money. You’re not making payroll. You’re not growing your business. You’re not creating jobs. You’re not moving the economy forward.”
Miles shared a story illustrating how her office, created just this year, can make life easier for small business owners and better for state agencies. It involved a man she called Dave, who wanted to open a truck driving school but was running into a quagmire with a little-known state agency called the Private Career School Licensing Unit. He presented his applications and other necessary papers to the agency in June 2013. By January of this year, he was stuck and didn’t know what else was needed or when or if he would get his license to open his school.
Miles decided to pay a personal visit to the agency dealing with the would-be business owner’s applications.
“I walk into the office and we sit down at a table and on the table is this legal-size accordion file, and it is bursting and spilling out onto the table,” she said. “It’s got sticky notes on it and copies of e-mails, curriculum for classes and anything you could think of. It turns out it was Dave’s file. That’s how they do the file keeping for initial licensees for this office.
“I said to them, ‘Hmm. That doesn’t look super functional. Do you do any digital file keeping?’ And they said, ‘Yes, we do! We do that for renewals.’”
But, those applicants seeking a first-time business license are dealt with in a decidedly low-tech fashion because the agency’s database plugs into a website that is publicly searchable and would not be able to differentiate between businesses with licenses and applicants merely seeking a license.
“They don’t have on their staff someone who can create a database for applicants, so they opted to use these legal-size accordion files, which is not a good thing because there are five people working on the process as any given point. They all have their hands in those files and there’s not a lot of organization there.”
She also discovered the agency was underfunded. It’s only source of revenue was fees from services and that some of those services were performed at no charge to applicants.
After a few questions, Miles learned that the agency was waiting for Dave to get back to them on some minor correction he needed to make on his application. Miles went back to Dave, who told her he couldn’t make his way through the convoluted legalese he received from the agency.
Miles immediately knew she could help both the agency and the Dave. First, she suggested that Dave hire an assistant to deal with the paperwork, so he hired his daughter. Then she recommended the agency take a good long look at the fee structure, and update their technology to make the application process quicker and more streamlined.
The bottom line for Miles’ first case was that Dave got his license last week and the state agency has begun updating their technology and hired a new manager.
“So they’ve got a huge change in how they operate,” Miles said.
The Small Business Advocate office assists current and prospective business owners in a number of ways. It will help would-be business owners with tasks as simple as bookkeeping help to larger policy issues that can affect a business.
Visit the Small Business Advocate office website for more information.
