Source: http://smallbusinesscalifornia3.blogspot.com/2011/08/
Timestamp: 2017-08-17 13:44:38
Document Index: 405814408

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3220', '§3221', '§3203', '§3203', '§5189', '§5192', '§3203', '§3221']

Small Business California: August 2011
Last word on Emergency plan and Fire Prevention plan
Here is definitive word on the Emergency plan and Fire Prevention plan. All of you that have plans (that don’t comply) are subject to fines. BUT if you don’t have a plan, then you are okay. I will bet most of you who have put something together are subject to citations. However, I want to restate that Cal OSHA is not looking to get employers, but this is the law. Small Business California will be working on this as we would think it is much better to try and fall short, than have nothing. Below is more elaborated explanation of this if you are interested.
“The Cal OSHA Appeals Board ruled in 1985 in its Educated Car Wash Decision after Reconsideration that employers are not required pursuant to T8CCR §3220 and §3221 to develop and implement written emergency action and fire plans. The Board wrote “Sections 3220 and 3221 do not have a corresponding charging or performance requirement. In other words, there is no safety order which mandates that an employer maintain an emergency action plan or a fire protection plan. However, when an employer voluntarily chooses to maintain such a plan, the standards set forth in Sections 3220 and 3221 detail the requirements of the plan and must be adhered to. Here, because Employer did not have an emergency action plan or a fire prevention plan, it cannot be cited for violating either safety order.”
That said, employers are required pursuant to §3203 “Injury and Illness Prevention Program” to identify, evaluate and control hazards in their respective workplaces. The IIPP is required to be written. Such hazards would include earthquake, fire, chemical release, for example. Cal OSHA’s “Model IIPP Program” references emergency action and fire prevention among its general safety and health practices. Enforcement of §3203 has remained fairly consistent since its inception in 1992. Predictably, questions have arisen as to just what needs to be included in an Emergency Action or Emergency Response Plan.
T8CCR §5189 (PSM) and §5192 (Hazardous Waste Operations) each require affected employers to develop and implement a written EAP and ERP. The California Fire Code requires all employers to develop emergency plans for addressing fires, to include contacting responders, evacuation procedures, assignment of responsibilities, etc. T8CCR §3203 anticipates that a reasonable employer will establish procedures for emergency situations.”
So the bottom line is as I told you on the phone, per the appeals board, you don’t have to have one, but if you do, it must comply.
Here are the two regs—you cited one of them already.
§3221. Fire Prevention Plan.
Posted by SB-Cal at 3:14 PM 1 comment:
Yesterday, in my email I mentioned that all businesses are required to have an emergency action plan. For details on what is required see link below. Failure to do so makes an employer subject to citations by Cal OSHA. However, I have verified from the Department of Industrial Relations that there is no enhanced efforts to go after employers for lack of compliance
http://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3220.html
Speaking of Cal OSHA I am surprised how many businesses are not aware that if they have employees they are required to have an Injury and Illness Prevention Plan. This plan among other things requires you to identify a Safety Manager, put forth a statement of Safety Policy , an investigation of safety hazards and accidents. It is also required that it be effective meaning you need to make sure your employees are aware of this plan. For information on how to put a plan in place I suggest you contact your insurance broker.
This is one of the most common citations for Cal OSHA and can mean fines up to $5000.
Yesterday Small Business California’s sponsored bill SB 826[Leno] passed the Assembly on a bipartisan vote. It will now go to the Governor where it is expected he will sign it. This bill implements modest fines of claims administrators. The reason for the bill was that there was a lack of compliance by many claims administrators to the Workers Compensation Information System as required by law. The WCIS is involved in making workers compensation policy and the lack of information makes it difficult to make good policy. This was even supported by claims administrators and virtually had no opposition
Yesterday, I sent an email about NLRB’s new posting requirement. About an hour after I sent this I learned that Cal OSHA is stepping up enforcement of its policy to require businesses to have emergency preparedness plans. Quite honestly, I did not know this was a requirement. According to Fred Walter, an employer attorney, he stated that
“In general Cal OSHA is more concerned with written documents taking more care to ensure that employer plans are completely documented “says Fred Walter adding “in the past the inspector would say your plan is weak beef it up” . He goes on to say “Now they are more likely to say you failed to include items six and nine therefore I’m issuing this citation”
The money collected from these citations goes into the general fund. On Bill Financing, which Hank Ryan and Small Business California brought to California small businesses, has been very successful in San Diego due to the work of Frank Spasaro and Southern California Gas/San Diego Gas and Electric. As you will recall this is a financing mechanism for small businesses that allows them to do energy retrofits and pay it back on their energy bill over three to five years at 0% financing. The cost of the retrofit is covered by the savings on their energy bill. To date, San Diego Gas has made almost 900 loans ($20 million) and there have been only 7 defaults. $6.8 million has been paid back and the cost of the defaults is $99,000. Unfortunately, PG&E and Southern California Edison have made very few loans even though they are required by the CPUC to do so.
This morning I received the Coleman report and it appears small business job creation in the US has slipped from 40,000 new jobs in July to 35,000 in August. Mr. Coleman said “Small Business Hiring Slows in August Wages have dipped and employers have reduced hours”. This is certainly disappointing results.
Posted by SB-Cal at 9:22 AM No comments:
Please see the new requirements for businesses below (or click on the link provided). NLRB is going to require employers to post this notice and put it on the internet (or intranet cite). It will be required to be posted by Nov 14 2011. There are exemptions, but it is so confusing that I would still recommend that all small businesses post this November 14th. I talked to someone at NLRB to sort out which type of small businesses would be exempt from this requirement. According to NLRB, even through my insurance agency, I would not be exempt because the majority of the insurance policies that I sell originate out-of-state. He even went so far as to say if I buy office products from out-of-state manufacturers for my business, it may hit the threshold to require my posting. Keep in mind it doesn’t matter if I buy them from a California company. If you are a labor attorney I welcome your thoughts.
Posted by SB-Cal at 2:32 PM No comments:
UPDATE: Stakeholder Recommendations for Small Business
Earlier in the week I said that Mike Rossi , the Governors Senior Advisor on economic development, was looking for ideas from small business on what California could do to strengthen California small businesses. Please see below for the list that was compiled by Toni Symonds from the JEDE committee. Please note this is not an all inclusive list and some recommendations were not included. Also there was not necessarily a consensus. The time did not allow Toni to go through that process. Some of you will see the recommendations that you sent to me. Click the image below to enlarge and click again to zoom in. Thank you
Posted by SB-Cal at 8:36 AM No comments:
Peter Lee Named as ED of Exchange/ Out of State Internet Tax Collections
It was announced this morning that Peter Lee has been named as Executive Director of the California Health Benefit Exchange. I think this is good news for California small businesses because he has a wealth of health policy experience. He was Executive Director of the Pacific Business Group on health running Pac Advantage.
I know Peter well as he was involved in my being appointed to the Board of Pacific Business Group on Health. This organization has around 50 large companies that have over 3 million employees covered by their health plans..
Peter has over 25 years experience in health policy.
Peter currently serves as Deputy Director for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at the Centers for M3edicare and Medicaid Services in Washington DC.
Small Business California is going to be very active in trying to maintain the collection of sales tax by out of state internet companies when they make sales in California. As I think you all know this was part of the Governors budget. Amazon is currently in the process of trying to get a measure on the June ballot to repeal this. I am going to be writing pieces on why this will help small business brick and mortar stores and why it will help small businesses by eliminating paperwork in the maintenance of receipts and paying the use tax.
If you are a businesses that is impacted please let me know and what this means to you.
Posted by SB-Cal at 9:47 AM No comments:
Please find survey from the Earthquake Engineering Institute. They have asked Small Business California to circulate a survey to small businesses around the state. They are also working with the Building Owners and Managers Associations in LA and SF. They are trying to determine when seismic retrofits should be required. The survey should take about 10 minutes.
Say you're doing a tenant improvement or a mechanical upgrade. Should the building code also require a seismic evaluation -- and possibly a retrofit -- even if your project wouldn't touch the structural system? You can contribute to the code change process by taking a survey developed by structural engineers funded by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (www.eeri.org). The 2010 CBC triggers upgrades in a few cases already, but some are asking whether the code should be more proactive about seismic mitigation. What role should the code play in a city's mitigation plan? Would code-triggered upgrades reduce risk or would they just discourage modernization projects? Should a seismic trigger be related to project cost? Should certain building types be exempted -- or targeted?
Take the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FN3BGTK. For more about the study, contact David Bonowitz, S.E. at dbonowitz@att.net.
For those of you in the Bay Area you might know John Legnitto. John works for Recology and serves as Chairman of the Board of the SF Chamber. I am pleased to tell you he just last week he was voted in as a member of our Board.
I am involved in a number volunteer activities but there is none that gives me more pleasure than Volunteers in Medicine and Clinic by the Bay www.clinicbythebay.org
Posted by SB-Cal at 8:33 AM No comments:
Last Thursday (8/18/2011), the Small Business Advisory committee to the Assembly Committee on Jobs Economic Development and the Economy[JEDE] met with Mike Rossi, the newly appointed Senior Jobs Advisor for the Governor. Ginnie Mistal who serves on the Board of Small Business California was also in attendance. Mr. Rossi asked for recommendations on how the state can help small businesses. What are your ideas?
Posted by SB-Cal at 10:19 AM No comments:
I have worked with Dr. Bornstein on the issue regarding toxic small business loans as a result of decreased home values and the impact on small business credit. Please note that California is the epicenter of this problem. This article is in the American Banker website and additional information on Dr. Bornstein is listed below.
August 18, 2011 1:56 pm EDT
The tepid demand for credit from small businesses may be more directly related to the mortgage boom and bust than it appears.
Obviously, the continued slump in the housing market is one reason for a weak economic recovery that has sapped overall demand for goods and services, and hence small businesses' growth prospects. But many business owners also took out toxic mortgages on their homes during the bubble years. Now in default or foreclosure, they cannot access credit just as their firms' sales are tanking
Now "the value of small businesses' collateral has gone down, often by substantial amounts," Dennis says. "You add to that weak sales, and it's dampened their enthusiasm to hire or expand."
Samuel D. Bornstein, an accounting professor at Kean University School of Business, has conducted surveys suggesting that over half of alternative-A mortgages in California alone went to small-business owners.
Such high exposure to bad home loans could delay the recovery of small business hiring — and of the rest of the economy — for years.
"There's an unrecognized link between small businesses, toxic mortgages and the housing crisis," says Bornstein, who has been studying small business failures since 2000.
"Small business owners are always looking to quench their need for cash and the mortgage companies were targeting them, letting them refinance into risky loans."
In 2008 and 2009, Bornstein conducted three surveys of small business owners. He found that they were eager to tap the equity in their homes to fund their operations, but then struggled when home prices dropped and access to credit shriveled.
According to Bornstein's surveys, 75% of toxic mortgages to small business owners were issued in the four states with high levels of foreclosure: California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. In California alone, 52% of bad home loans went to small business owners.
Historically, small businesses that employ 1 to 20 people have been the first to recover from economic downturns, but that hasn't happened this time around.
In a study this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that jobs fell 10% from December 2007 to December 2009 at businesses with less than 50 employees, compared with a 7.5% decline in jobs at larger firms. That pattern was noticeably different from the 2001 recession, according to the New York Fed.
Now Bornstein and other industry experts are sounding an alarm about alternative-A mortgages that are resetting this year and next, saying those resets will disproportionately impact small business owners and, by extension, the overall economy.
Alt-A loans typically did not require any documentation of a borrower's income. Such loans allowed a borrower to make interest-only payments for between three to five years, and many contained "pay option" features in which the principal balance on the mortgage increases every month.
Though interest rates are at record lows, borrowers still face big increases in their monthly mortgage payments because the principal balances have gone up dramatically.
"Another wave of defaults looms on the horizon," Bornstein says.
Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at the data firm RealtyTrac Inc., has estimated that $200 billion of alt-A adjustable-rate mortgages will start resetting this year. Many of the properties have lost between 30% to 50% of their value, making it a near-certainty that some borrowers will stop making their mortgage payments because they owe far more on their loan than the home is now worth.
Many banks have long recognized the problems with alt-A loans: since 2009, Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have been modifying such loans in record numbers.
But giving borrowers "interest-only modifications" is equally as unsustainable as the original "interest only" loans, because they simply put off foreclosures for another day.
The undocumented nature of most Alt-A loans makes it difficult to assess the full exposure of small businesses, but Bornstein's surveys have made him pessimistic about the resets' impact on the broader recovery.
"The financial distress of small businesses will have a multiplying effect on job losses and foreclosures," he says.
More articles at www.americanbanker.com
Posted by SB-Cal at 10:15 AM 1 comment:
IRS Narrows Independent Contractor Relief - Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2011/08/16/irs-narrows-independent-contractor-relief/
Posted by SB-Cal at 10:08 AM No comments:
THIRTY-SEVEN ADDITIONAL COMMUNITY BANKS ACROSS THE COUNTRY RECEIVE $418 MILLION TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES ACCESS CAPITAL, CREATE NEW JOBS
Total of 80 Banks Have Now Received More than $1.0 Billion in Funding through
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced that an additional 37 community banks across the country received a total of $418 million as part of the next wave of funding provided through the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF). The SBLF, which was established as part of the Small Business Jobs Act that President Obama signed into law, encourages community banks to increase their lending to small businesses, helping those companies expand their operations and create new jobs.
Including today’s announcement, 80 community banks have now received more than $1.0 billion in SBLF funding. Additional SBLF funding announcements will be made on a rolling basis in the weeks ahead.
The 37 banks that received SBLF funding as part of today’s announcement include:
• Oak Valley Bancorp (Oakdale, California) -- $13.5 million
• Silvergate Capital Corporation (La Jolla, California) -- $12.4 million
• Summit State Bank (Santa Rosa, California) -- $13.8 million
• BNC Financial Group, Inc. (New Canaan, Connecticut) -- $11.0 million
• SBT Bancorp, Inc. (Simsbury, Connecticut) -- $9.0 million
• Community Bank Delaware (Lewes, Delaware) -- $4.5 million
• Bank of Central Florida (Lakeland, Florida) -- $7.0 million
• Jefferson Bank of Florida (Oldsmar, Florida) -- $3.4 million
• Community Illinois Corporation (Rock Falls, Illinois) -- $4.5 million
• Tri-County Financial Group, Inc. (Mendota, Illinois) -- $20.0 million
• First Savings Financial Group, Inc. (Clarksville, Indiana) -- $17.1 million
• Equity Bancshares, Inc. (Wichita, Kansas) -- $16.4 million
• UBT Bancshares, Inc. (Marysville, Kansas) -- $16.5 million
• First NBC Bank Holding Company (New Orleans, Louisiana) -- $37.9 million
• Island Bancorp, Inc. (Edgartown, Massachusetts) -- $4.0 million
• Mercantile Capital Corporation (Boston, Massachusetts) -- $7.0 million
• New England Bancorp, Inc. (Hyannis, Massachusetts) -- $4.0 million
• Rockport National Bancorp, Inc. (Rockport, Massachusetts) -- $3.0 million
• Monument Bank (Bethesda, Maryland) -- $11.4 million
• Crestmark Bancorp, Inc. (Troy, Michigan) -- $8.3 million
• Select Bancorp, Inc. (Greenville, North Carolina) -- $7.6 million
• Community Partners Bancorp (Middletown, New Jersey) -- $12.0 million
• Kinderhook Bank Corp. (Kinderhook, New York) -- $7.0 million
• AmeriServ Financial, Inc. (Johnstown, Pennsylvania) -- $21.0 million
• DNB Financial Corporation (Dowingtown, Pennsylvania) -- $13.0 million
• Jonestown Bank and Trust Company (Jonestown, Pennsylvania) -- $4.0 million
• Valley Green Bank (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) -- $5.0 million
• Carroll Financial Services, Inc. (Huntingdon, Tennessee) -- $3.0 million
• Evolve Bancorp, Inc. (Cordova, Tennessee) -- $4.7 million
• Independent Holdings, Inc. (Memphis, Tennessee) -- $34.9 million
• SmartFinancial, Inc. (Pigeon Forge, Tennessee) -- $12.0 million
• McLaughlin Bancshares, Inc. (Ralls, Texas) -- $6.6 million
• Third Coast Bank SSB (Humble, Texas) -- $8.7 million
• Heritage Bankshares, Inc. (Norfolk, Virginia) -- $7.8 million
• WashingtonFirst Bankshares, Inc. (Reston, Virginia) -- $17.8 million
• Peoples Bancorp (Lynden, Washington) -- $18.0 million
• Puget Sound Bank (Bellevue, Washington) -- $9.9 million
Posted by SB-Cal at 9:58 AM No comments:
Most of you I think have received request from the Board of Equalization to review your receipts for three years and report and pay the use tax for purchases from out of state Internet companies.
Along with the amount owed you are required to pay all interest and penalty charges. You also were registered with the BOE if your receipts were over $100000 and you did not have a resellers license. This is called the “Qualified Purchaser Program”[ QPP]
Senator George Runner on the BOE Board wrote an Op Ed piece called ”A Qualified Mess” pointing out the problems with QPP. He also surveyed small businesses and as a result the BOE has agreed to make changes to QPP including eliminating the automatic registration of businesses and allowing the businesses to leave the program if they don’t owe tax or their income falls below $100000.
By Greg Farrell and Michael A. Riley - Aug 4, 2011 – Bloomberg.com
Remainder of story at this link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-04/hackers-take-1-billion-a-year-from-company-accounts-banks-won-t-indemnify.html.
I have received a couple of calls from reporters asking me how small business feels about the National debt and increasing the debt limit.
I am curious in the scheme of things how important is the National debt to your small business versus other issues like the cost of health insurance, access to capital, regulations, taxation and the cost of gasoline. I look forward to hearing from you.
I received a copy of an email sent by EDD. It was entitled “Tired of Other Businesses Not Paying Their Share”. It went on to say that you can report anonymously payroll fraud by calling toll free an EDD hotline number 1 800-528-1783.
It concludes by saying “Help us level the playing field for California Business”.
Has anyone ever called this number? Did they follow through.
In my conversations with small business people I am told that the people are very nice but the caller is told EDD does not have the money to do anything. I hope I am wrong here because the underground economy is a problem for a lot of small businesses.
If you decide to call let me know your experience.
I sent the list of state agencies out awhile back but many of you were not on this email list. See below the state agencies in California.
These are all California State Agencies !!!!!!!!
We all know that the only places they can cut is Police and Fire....
It doesn't matter whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or Independent. This list has to shock you. Over the years, our politicians have created this enormous pork barrel of agencies that employ over 350,000 people directly and countless more via contracts with the State. All of these people get salaries, medical coverage and pensions at our expense and amost all are unionized. Take a good, close look. Unbelievable? No. Believe it!
Posted by SB-Cal at 10:02 AM 2 comments:
Hank Ryan is the Executive Director and energy guru of Small Business California. He asked me to send the letter below to our Small Business California family. Please take a moment and send to me the your energy bill.
Beginning this fall, all businesses in California will be switched to a "time of use" rate.
SB-Cal is supporting proposed legislation, SB843, in California that could help small businesses save significantly where they use large amounts of electricity during weekdays. Examples include manufacturing, small grocery stores or even convenience stores.
We are asking for businesses in California that would be both willing to share an electric bill and that are already on a "time of use" rate like "A6" in PG&E's territory (GS-1, GS-2 in SCE's territory, ALTOU in SDG&E's territory), to help determine the amount of savings SB 843 could help deliver back to the business.
The legislation allows consumers to "buy" part of a larger solar installation that is located elsewhere. The cost of electricity for the energy from the solar power is 11 cents per kilowatt hour. When businesses use energy during the summer peak times (generally 1-5pm), they pay up to 30 cents per kilowatt hour.
Therefore, those businesses would see a "bill credit" for the energy that the solar power provides during those peak time hours.
We would like to be able to demonstrate what value this might provide to a small business in California.
Please let us know if you would be willing to share your energy bill for the month of June if your business is on a "time of use" rate.
I was listening to NPR Scott Simons this morning and he talked about a poll that was recently done.
The question asked was assuming there is a God do you approve of his/her performance? 52% said they did.
This compares favorably with 46% approval of President Obama and 33% of Congress.
It compares unfavorably with Oprah Winfrey's approval rating of 60%.
Scott went on to say that he would like the question asked of God what his/her approval rating was of the people he created?
I frequently rail against elected officials. I also frequently ask people running for office how they would vote when their constituency/supporters support something that they feel is bad public policy.
Taking this the next step what I am asking is would they vote against their constituency/supporters when they thought it was not in the best interest of our country, state, county or city.
Keep in mind in doing so they could lose their elected office or be recalled.
It is easy for us to criticize when we really have no skin in the game. As we look at the battle in Washington we say that it is all politics. The blame lies with Republicans or Democrats. What do we really expect it to be, given the impact it will have on the elected officials' jobs?
Are we not somewhat to blame?
Posted by SB-Cal at 11:10 AM No comments: