Common Sense comes to aid of Ohio business

By BEcky Brooks

Man­ag­ing Editor

news@gazettepublishingco.com

Brian Dicken, North­west Regional rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor’s office, talked to the Belle­vue Area Cham­ber of Com­merce Thurs­day at the Club House at the Willows.

The regional offi­cial said that Taylor’s office has been work­ing to elim­i­nate unneeded paper­work and reg­u­la­tions in Ohio.

The pro­gram is called The Com­mon Sense Ini­tia­tive, or CSI.

“It’s our piece of the over­all cul­ture of how we do busi­ness in the state,” Dicken told a small crowd at the luncheon.

He said in Taylor’s first 18-months in office, the office has worked from the bot­tom up find­ing unwar­ranted regulations.

“We never promise we are going to fix every prob­lem that is going to come along,” he said.

The goal is to have all state agen­cies fill out a ques­tion­naire about reg­u­la­tion changes and have them address five areas: The pur­pose of a rule; who the stake­hold­ers are; what is the impact on busi­ness com­mu­nity and list any new fees; what flex­i­bil­ity is built in for the small busi­ness com­mu­nity; and are there a dupli­ca­tion of efforts.

“We don’t want to cre­ate extra bureau­cracy and rules,” he pointed out.

After forms are filled out, they are reviewed and the office can aid an agency in tweak­ing reg­u­la­tions before they go into affect.

Dicken said the office is rely­ing on busi­nesses to let CSI know if there is a prob­lem or dupli­ca­tion of reg­u­la­tions that they are deal­ing with.

The office has been able to assist some indi­vid­ual busi­nesses with mak­ing reg­u­la­tion changes to help pro­mote busi­ness growth.

There is now also the “Buck­eye For­ever” plan for edu­ca­tion that allows any Ohio high school grad­u­ate who leaves the state to return and attend a state uni­ver­sity at in-state rates, he said. In the past, once they left Ohio, state grad­u­ates were charged out-of-state tuition at col­leges, he said.

For assis­tance or more infor­ma­tion visit CSIOhio@governor.ohio.gov or find CSI Ohio on Facebook.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Jun 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.