Mark Alford Asks Witness To Predict The Impact Of A Redesigned SBA On Small Businesses

2 days ago

During a House Small Business Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) discussed the Small Business Administration’s initiative that will relocate a number of its employees across the country.

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Transcript

00:00I recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Gutierrez, this morning I was proud to

00:04introduce the Returning SBA to Main Street Act companion bill to Chairwoman Ernst's bill in

00:09the U.S. Senate. Mr. Gutierrez, over the past four years you've had firsthand experience working to

00:14fill the gap, somewhat big gap, left by a political SBA. Can you speak to us about how an SBA that is

00:23actually focused on Main Street could actually help small businesses? Thank you for the question,

00:30Congressman. You know, having SBA focus on what the mission and values of SBA should be on

00:37supporting small businesses is crucial. I know that several SBA field offices are short on staff.

00:44I know that many of them were not necessarily available to help as soon as help was needed.

00:53Therefore, we were able to fill the gap along with some other resource partners as well,

00:57but the SBA essentially just needs to focus on what it is they're doing and serving the small

01:02businesses, relying on its partners to work and to help on the front lines. Having SBA in the field

01:09would be a tremendous asset to small businesses, particularly in, you know, throughout the

01:15Midwest, of course. Working with the community bankers to having those subject matter experts

01:19in the field would be amazing. Over the past few years, we've had one SBA representative in the

01:25field in Missouri down in Springfield and the others were located in both St. Louis and Kansas

01:30City, so that's simply just not enough assistance from SBA throughout the state. And of course,

01:36any time that assistance was needed, they typically referred them out to the partners,

01:41such as SBDCs, the Women's Business Centers, the Veterans Business Outreach Centers, and SCORE as

01:48well. So what would it mean if we ended up moving the Kansas City SBA office to Columbia? Well,

01:54Columbia will be very excited to have SBA presence there again. I believe that during COVID, the SBA

02:00office was removed at that time, and so just having that local presence, that local subject

02:05matter would do wonders because it would mean more availability to community bankers. Being

02:10central to the state would mean more access throughout the state within five, six hours'

02:15drive anywhere across the state, and it would just serve as a signal that SBA is here and ready to

02:22help serve in the communities. Mr. Ortiz, SBA Administrator Loeffler has echoed the President's

02:26return to office mandate. SBA staff are now required to be in the office five days a week.

02:32While this is a great start, you have further recommended that funding regional initiatives

02:36like entrepreneur centers would be a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars. Please

02:40explain your reasoning for that recommendation, sir. Mike, please, your mic.

02:47Thank you, Chairman, for the question. Having education and innovation centers, I think,

02:52regionally closer to where our small business owners are would be extremely, I think,

02:58well-received by our small business owners. I doubt that there are too many small business

03:02entrepreneurs out there in, let's say, Des Moines, Iowa that decide, hey, I want to start my own

03:07small business. Let me get on a plane, fly up to D.C. and enter the halls of SBA to help me do that.

03:13They need them there. They need where they are, where the ideas are. We need to bring those

03:17resources to the people where the people are, not here in D.C. One of the recommendations I had

03:24made is let's just close down the D.C. offices. I don't see why we would need that. I think we

03:28need those resources out in the fields. We need support for folks like Mr. Gutierrez here,

03:34and we need to be able to support our small business owners where they are, which is in

03:36the fields. They're not in D.C. And so I think having the opportunity to do that, I think,

03:41would make, you know, the $1.4 billion roughly that's allocated for the department much more

03:47effective and more efficiently. Thank you, sir. Mr. Gutierrez, back to you.

03:51Through the COVID-19 pandemic was declared over in 23, community navigators programs continue

03:57well into 2025. In fact, that program is set to sunset nine months from now.

04:02Some people call it walking around money. For Biden-preferred organizations, it seems that

04:09community navigators has a reputation for not being very efficient. Can you walk us through

04:15how the community navigators program duplicated efforts already done by SBDCs?

04:21So, my understanding with the community navigators program is that each state was allocated a certain

04:27amount of funding, and it was granted towards a certain NGO or non-profit. And to be quite

04:34honest with you, the SBDCs in several states actually hosted the navigators program. In the

04:40state of Missouri, we did not. We were actually never contacted by the navigators program.

04:45I cannot speak to any type of results or any type of information produced by the navigators program.

04:51We knew they were there somewhere in Missouri, and I don't even know if they're staffed anymore. So,

04:57as far as duplication of efforts, we were doing that all along for 43 years.

05:02We'll be doing it for another 43 years. Thank you.

Mark Alford Asks Witness To Predict The Impact Of A Redesigned SBA On Small Businesses

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