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Efforts pending in the state Legislature could resurrect an advisory panel designed to give Wisconsin’s small business owners a greater voice in the development of new state regulations. The panel, created in 2004, stopped meeting in 2008, leaving a void in state government, state business champions say. A new law would revive the board and give it greater clout.

The efforts are two-fold. Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed 2011-13 budget would move the Small Business Regulatory Review Board from its current home in the state Department of Commerce to the Department of Administration, where it would presumably be resurrected. (Walker’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.)

And legislation introduced by State Sen. Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls), State Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) and other Republican lawmakers would expand the board’s powers.

Under current law, any state agency that determines a proposed regulation has a “significant economic impact on small business” (defined as those with 25 or fewer employees or annual sales less than $5 million) must refer it to the board, where members review it, further analyze its effects on small businesses and suggest changes – including killing the proposed rules altogether.

According to Department of Commerce spokesman Tony Hozeny, the board last met in November 2008. He says it stopped meeting after the department’s Small Business Ombudsman position became vacant and was not filled due to a state hiring freeze.

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The Small Business Ombudsman (previously Carol Dunn, who left to become the Women’s Business Ombudsman at the department) is not a member of the board, but he or she is its primary staff member. The position also serves as a single contact point for small businesses with concerns about proposed rules.

Bill Smith, director of the Wisconsin chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, says the board’s dormancy “left a real void” and the absence of an ombudsman took away “a go-to position for our state’s small businesses.”

The position could have been filled again. The state Department of Administration, which imposed the hiring freeze in 2008, said at the time it would consider replacing employees “critical to the successful operation of the agency.”

In its last year of meetings, the board considered rules on asbestos training, invasive species, Medicaid reimbursement, fertilizer and pesticide storage, transporting hazardous waste and changes to the state’s minimum wage.

The Department of Commerce’s website contains links to board documents from 2008 – and nothing later – but doesn’t note the panel’s current state of dormancy. Quite the contrary: The board’s page announces, “If you are a Wisconsin small business owner and you believe an existing or proposed state agency rule will adversely affect your business, you now have the means to make your concerns known.”

And a 2010 column by Commerce Secretary Aaron Olver summing up “The Doyle Years” touted the legislation that created the board (saying it “provided small business with greater voice in the state’s rulemaking process”) without mentioning it was no longer meeting. (Doyle appointed Olver in late 2010 after Dick Leinenkugel resigned to mount a U.S. Senate run that never materialized.)

Current law calls for 18 board members – six representatives of small business interests appointed by the governor, the chairs of the state senate and Assembly committees on small business and nine representatives from state agencies – the departments of administration, agriculture, trade and consumer protection, children and families, commerce, health services, natural resources, regulation and licensing, revenue and workforce development.

The legislation sponsored by Moulton and other Republicans would strip all state agency representatives from the board and increase the number of small business representatives to seven.

Smith, who supports the change, says the department representatives were intended to explain the rules but instead became advocates for them, defeating the panel’s purpose. “The point of the board is to sensitize (the agencies) to the effects of these regulations on small businesses,” a process diluted with department representatives outnumbering those for small businesses.

The bill would also allow the board to determine which proposed regulations have a “substantial” impact on small businesses and would therefore be subject to its review. Currently, this decision is made by the agencies themselves.

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