FAU cuts funding for small-business center

SBDC State Director Jerry Cartwright said the organization is talking with potential supporters and he's confident he can keep the operation going.

''The good news is that we have six months to try to find some other organization to step in,'' Cartwright said. ``If not, then we have to look at funding statewide and see if we can keep a skeleton counseling group together to provide service until we do find a new host.''

The SBDC's Miami-Dade and Monroe County operations are already slated to be financed next year by a handful of institutions, including South Florida Workforce, the Doral Business Council, The Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce and the Latin Chamber of Commerce.

Over the last three decades, the SBDC has emerged as one of the single most important resources for small business owners. The organization helped 10,000 area entrepreneurs last year through seminars, counseling and by serving as a gateway to Small Business Administration-backed loans.

Those services -- all free -- are particularly vital as the economy sputters, said Nancy Young, the regional director of FAU's Small Business Development Center.

''This is exactly the time that the community needs the support of services like ours,'' she said. Shuttering the SBDC, she said, would ``be a terrible loss to the community.''

South Florida is awash in small firms. Of the 481,387 companies in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, 78 percent are owner-run and have no employees, according to the U.S. Census.

Joanna Goriss is among those who have relied on the SBDC. Goriss said she attended about 20 business seminars and talked with SBDC's certified counselors for two years before opening her dog-care and boarding business, Family Dog Central, in Deerfield Beach.

Just a few days ago, an SBDC counselor came by her six-month old company to talk about how to market and advertise her services.

''There are not many places where a small business owner can go for free and get advice,'' she said. ``It's an invaluable service.''

Working from her home office in Miami, Pati Vargas said she would never have been able to launch Orun Entertainment, which books musical acts, without the SBDC's support. Vargas said she took dozens of free classes at the SBDC, including accounting, marketing, Web design and business etiquette. ''I received so much,'' she said.

Florida is home to 34 SBDCs, but the centers that rely on university support such as the one at FAU are feeling the pinch, Cartwright said.

Dennis Coates, the dean of FAU's Barry Kaye College of Business, which has been supporting the SBDC, said his school's 2008-2009 budget was slashed by $930,000.

''When you get that large of a cut you have to look carefully at what programs are serving students,'' he said. ``The SBDC is a great service to the community but it does not generate student credit hours.''

The school had been providing the SBDC office space and services as well as about $450,000 year in cash needed to unlock a matching grant from the Small Business Administration.

Young, of the SBDC, said she is committed to keeping the organization alive. Along with meeting potential backers, the organization launched a new website, www.sbdc2009.com, to attract supporters.

It's the kind of aggressive marketing that SBDC counselors might recommend to start-ups.

''We have been helping others all this time,'' Young said, ``but now we have to do it for ourselves.''