Amendment 66 is good for small business

In the last fewweeks, I have heard several people say that Amendment 66would hurt our small businesses. The small-business owners I knowdo not agree.

For 23 years, I was a small-business owner. I was the founder and CEO ofWestern Industrial Contractors. We started out with three employees and a 1969 pickup truck (in 1982) on a dead-end, unpaved street across from a junk yard. I know the challenges of growing a small business.

Along the way, I became involved in the small-business community as chair of the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Council and the founding chair of Gov. Roy Romer’s Small Business Council, as well as a member of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Advisory Board under Erskine Bowles.

In my years involved with small-business leadership throughout our country, I found that the No. 1 issue of small businesses is not their tax rate. (Although even after we pass Amendment 66, Colorado will still have a lower effective tax rate than 75 percent of the other states in our great nation.) Their No. 1 issue is how do they increase their revenues— how do they get more contracts, sell more products, grow their business? Small-business owners want to know how they can grow their share of the pie. Amendment 66 will increase the whole pie in Colorado, and small business will benefit from it.

All businesses, large and small, care deeply about the availability of an educated and trained workforce. It is a vital component of their ability to grow and succeed. Amendment 66 will be a boon to our economic development efforts. It will allow us to attract large businesses to our state because we will have a strategic advantage: our commitment to a highly educated workforce that includes all of our children. And small business will be the beneficiary of those large companies locating here and expanding our economy and providing more jobs and contracts.

That iswhy somany of our local business leaders of large, medium and small companies are supporting Amendment 66, including successful CEOs such as David Merage of Consolidated Investment Group; Mark Cordova of Centennial Bolt; Katherine Gold of Goldbug; Richard Lewis of RTL Networks; Kate Paul of DeltaDental; andNatasha Felten of Colorado Commercial Companies.

Other supporters include Donna Lynne, group president of Kaiser Permanente Colorado; Mario Carrera, chief revenue officer of Entravision; La Rae Orullian, founder, past chair and CEO of theWomen’s Bank and past chair of Frontier Airlines; Zee and Mike Ferrufino, CEO and VP/GMof KBNO, KXRE and KAVA Radio; and Patricia Barela Rivera, the former Colorado district director of theU.S. Small Business Administration. Hundreds more business, foundation, education and community leaders are supporting Amendment 66.

Here iswhat they know: Their future and our country’s future is absolutely dependent upon the education of our children. Amendment 66 will increase the number of teachers and teacher’s aides in our children’s classrooms. Principals will be able to bring back art, music, physical education to their students. All children will have full-day kindergarten. And our most vulnerable chil- dren— 3- and 4-year-olds— will have early childhood education.

My dear friend and mentor, Brad Butler, whowas chairman and CEO of Proctor and Gamble, used to say to business leaders across the nation, “You can support your public schools because it is the right thing to do for our children or you can support them because is the only economically viable decision you can make for the future of your business. But you must support them.” Amen, Brad.

In passing Amendment 66, we have an opportunity to do something great for Colorado— great for our children, our schools, our community, our economy and great for small business.