The organization that advocates for small businesses in Louisiana is generally pleased with how the legislative session went. Leah Long, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, says there were two bills in particular which passed that the organization is very pleased about. She says one of them creates the Bayou Growth Opportunity Workforce Program, or BayouWorks.
“A big issue for small business owners is finding qualified workers. And so it’s going to continue to allow grants to businesses that partner with qualified training providers to help build skills and earn industry certificates,” Long explained.
Long says another bill that passed that the organization is pleased about is one that modernizes the state’s workers comp system and helps reduce costs for small businesses.
“The idea is making sure these employers are following, and that these employees can get the healthcare that they need if they are, unfortunately, hurt on the job and back to work as soon as possible; to continue to keep the business growing, to continue to keep that employee making money,” Long said.
Long says there were also bills the organization was advocating for which went nowhere, including a centralized sales tax collection bill.
“Even thought that bill did not make it out of committee, it was, I think, very important that the bill was heard and we were allowing business owners to tell the legislators how bad they need this. And I think that’s starting the education aspect of that in a couple of years; hopefully, we’ll get there,” Long noted.
Long says the organization was also playing defense with some bills that it did not agree with, including those which would have imposed new labor mandates and regulatory mandates on small businesses.
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