Senate Votes Temporary Funding for Women's Business Centers The Senate has approved legislation to provide temporary funding for five women’s business centers that were in danger of losing their federal grants before the end of the current fiscal year. Senate Small Business Committee Chair Olympia Snowe sponsored the bill, S. 1247. It permits SBA to re-program money through Sept. 30 to continue funding for centers in Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas and Washington state. Those centers are reaching the end of their five-year grant cycles. SBA is proposing to cut off funding for centers more than five years old and use that money to open new centers. Snowe has introduced a bill that would continue funding for the older centers. Under S. 1154, the centers would apply for new grants every three years, as small business development centers do. The Association of Women’s Business Centers estimates that 50% to 75% of the centers would close or severely cut back services if the grants were eliminated. The centers provided training and counseling to nearly 86,000 women entrepreneurs during fiscal 2002. They must match their federal dollars with other contributions. SBA says 30% of the program’s $12 million budget goes for so-called sustainability grants to centers more than five years old. As a result, the agency can fund only two or three new centers each year. “Our goal is not to close or hinder existing centers, but to encourage growth and innovation in the current program,” said Kaaren Johnson Street, SBA associate deputy administrator. “The WBC program provides valuable services to an underserved community, but its costs per client is the most expensive program within the (entrepreneurial development) programs, and this program reaches a smaller number of women than any of the other programs, including SCORE (the Service Corps of Retired Executives), which operates for half the cost.” She testified before the House Small Business Committee June 11.