Legislative Corner

On Friday, January 4, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed Executive Directive No. 27 establishing the Office of Contractor Relations for the City of Los Angeles.

The office, part of the Mayor’s Economic and Business Policy Office, is designed to enact and oversee programs, policies, and procedures to ensure that all businesses, including small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses, have an equal opportunity to participate in city contracts.  It will be tasked with the responsibility to establish and achieve contracting goals as well as strengthen the city’s outreach to minority, veteran, and women-owned firms.

A week after the 2012 Election Cycle where the House and Senate essentially remained the same, Congress returned to Washington for the final weeks of the 112th Congress.  As talks continued between leaders in Congress on how to address the impending fiscal cliff, Members of the House passed a bill to establish permanent trade relations with the ninth-largest economy in the world, Russia.

State of Connecticut Launches STEP UP for Small Businesses

On April 3, 2012, Governor Dan Malloy (D-CT) announced a new program designed to promote job creation by providing incentives to employers that hire unemployed jobseekers.

The Subsidized Training and Employment Program (STEP UP), created as part of a jobs package passed by the state legislature, creates two types of hiring incentives for eligible small businesses. A six month wage subsidy is available to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees who hire those from a community with an employment rate equal to or higher than that of the state (7.7% as of April 2012). Further, such employees must have an adjusted family income equal to or less than 250% of the federal poverty level.

This week pieces of President Obama’s American Jobs Act supporting veterans and government contractors won approval from both chambers of Congress. The provisions passed would repeal a tax on government contractors, boost job training for veterans and offer tax credits to companies that hire unemployed veterans.

On Thursday, November 10, 2011, the Senate passed a bill that would repeal a 3% withholding tax on federal contractors that was signed into law in 2005 but has been yet to be enacted. Prior to the passage of this provision, if enacted, government agencies would have been required to withhold 3% of all payments to federal contractors and send the funds directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).