New customer service standards for state agencies
In November, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services issued new customer service standards that apply to most executive branch state agencies. The standards require state agencies to post customer service contact information on their websites.
Agency websites must include any customer service phone numbers, office locations, walk-in service locations, mailing addresses, hours of operation, and instructions on how to schedule an appointment. All email addresses listed on an agency’s website must be active and checked regularly.
State agencies have to keep the information on their websites up-to-date. This includes alerting the public about any scheduled closures that deviate from an agency’s posted hours of operation. Agencies must use all available communication channels, including voicemail, websites, and social media accounts, to notify the public in advance about any changes to their normal service hours.
Furthermore, agencies must respond to customers by the next business day. The guidelines specifically require state agency employees to “acknowledge receipt of a voicemail, text message, and email (including web messages, if applicable) within one business day.”
You can find the customer service policy and standards on the Department of Administrative Services website.
Individual Development Accounts
People often reach out to the Office of Small Business Assistance (OSBA) with questions about financial resources for small businesses. While OSBA does not offer financing or expertise in finance, we do try to refer people to more appropriate resources. One good resource for those who need help financing their business is an Individual Development Account, or IDA.
An IDA is a special savings account that helps people with lower incomes save money for specific goals. Common goals include buying a first home, going to school, or starting a small business. When someone puts money into an IDA, the program that runs the IDA matches it, or perhaps even adds a little more. For example, if someone saves $1, the program might add another $2 or $3. This helps the person's savings grow faster.
Often, people who use IDAs must attend financial classes. These classes teach budgeting, money management, and planning for the future. Once a savings goal is met, the money from the account, including the matched amount, can be spent only on the specific goal. The money is usually paid directly to a school, business, or seller to ensure it is used correctly.
The purpose of IDAs is to help people build savings, improve financial skills, and reach important personal goals. There are many IDAs available for many different purposes, but a good place to start is the Oregon IDA Initiative website.
Legislative update:
Why we're tracking
so many bills
“Why so many bills?” Customers often ask that question when they learn that the Office of Small Business Assistance (OSBA) is watching over 1100 bills. As of this writing, we’re tracking 1144 legislative measures out of the 3398 total introduced to date.
At the beginning of each legislative session, we cast a very wide net when searching for bills that potentially affect small businesses. According to OSBA’s governing statutes, a small business is any for-profit or nonprofit enterprise with 100 or fewer employees.
Very few of the bills we track, if any, affect every type of small business universally. Most are specific to certain types of businesses, in certain sectors of the economy, that meet certain conditions. Because we work with a wide variety of businesses, we track bills to stay informed about how legislation might affect any type of small business in any way.
Not every bill that potentially affects small businesses has an adverse effect. Legislation oftentimes helps small businesses by creating assistance programs, carving out regulatory exemptions, providing tax breaks, or promoting contracting opportunities.
The legislation we track usually fits into one or more of the following categories:
- professional and occupational licensing
- business taxes
- land use and zoning
- agriculture and natural resources issues that affect small farmers and ranchers
- employer-employee relationship
- public procurement and contracting
- landlord-tenant relationship
- tourism and recreation
- industry-specific regulations
- laws that regulate the sale or manufacture of certain products
We also track placeholder bills. Most often, you can spot a placeholder bill because it requires the legislature or a state agency to study a particular issue.
OSBA tracks placeholders because they can be vehicles for what in legislative lingo is a “gut and stuff” measure—a slang term that means amending a bill to replace the existing text with entirely new language. While the new bill language must pertain to the measure’s title, also known as the “relating to” clause, the amendment could entirely change what the measure does.
OSBA’s Small Business Legislation page lists all the legislative measures that we’re tracking. We do our best to find and track most bills that affect Oregon small businesses, aiming to be as comprehensive as possible. Please remember that we remain neutral on legislation, neither supporting nor opposing any listed bill.
|
