Barreto Defends Funding Plan for Women's Centers SBA Administrator Hector Barreto and Senate Small Business Committee Chair Olympia Snowe said they will try to find common ground on future funding for women’s business centers. The Bush administration is proposing to eliminate federal funding for the centers after they have been in operation five years. Snowe (R-ME) has introduced legislation to continue funding them indefinitely. The centers are required to match their federal funds with other contributions. (SAA, 4/18, 5/30) The administration proposal would cut off federal support to more than two-thirds of the 81 existing centers by October 2004. Some advocates say many of them would be forced to shut down. The centers provide training and counseling for women entrepreneurs. Under current law, centers may apply for “sustainability grants” after their first five years of operations. The administration wants to end those grants. Testifying before Snowe’s committee June 4, Barreto said the grants eat up 30% of the program’s $12 million budget. He said the grant money could be used to open at least 18 centers in major markets next year. SBA says it can now afford to open only two or three new centers a year. However, the administration is not asking for more money for the program. Under Snowe’s bill, S. 1154, women’s centers would apply for new grants every three years. Barreto also defended the administration’s proposal to require small business development centers to re-compete for federal funding every five years. “This is not as extreme a plan as some people believe and the specter of a wholesale dismantling of the SBDC system is baseless,” he said in prepared testimony. “The competitive process would be phased in, and the proposal calls for a system in which strong, performing incumbents will have a decided edge,” he added. “Underperforming centers will have to work to improve their performance and prove their value.”