SBA’s FY 2014 Budget Update

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December 17, 2013

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

teeroweyoutubeTee Rowe, President & CEO America’s SBDC Spoke with Bob Coleman about the SBA fiscal year 2014 budget.

Bob Coleman: Tee, talk to us about the SBA budget, how is it looking for FY 2014?

Tee Rowe: It has been a couple of years since we have gotten a real budget, having had to work off of continuing resolutions and such.

Now, thankfully, the House accepted the budget deal late last week and the Senate is working on it now.

They have to get 60 votes to invoke cloture and end debate. Senator Durbin was pretty frank, he needs five republicans.

He probably needs more than that, he needs something like eight. He’s got three or so Senators on his side of the aisle that are not happy with the deal for whatever reason.

My personal opinion is, something that everybody thinks stinks is usually the best deal that we can come up with.

Bob Coleman: How does SBA look in that Budget?

Tee Rowe: Actually from an SBA and SBDC point of view, coming out of the budget with a top line spending number is good for us because it means the appropriations will go through regular order. That is good for SBA as a whole.

The appropriators really support SBA and it’s mission. The biggest problem they have is they get tied up in the overall sequestration and government shutdown mechanics. When they get trapped in that, their wishes don’t come out. I think that was big impetus for this budget deal.

It was a lot of members saying they lose control of what is going on and there are important things they need. Some of them being SBA loans, SBDC’s, SCORE, Women’s Business Centers, all of that stuff really gets chewed up in sequestration.

Watch the 2 minute video