While the two remaining gubernatorial candidates who emerged from a surprising primary season prepare to kick their campaigns into overdrive, small business owners are eager to make sure their issues of concern make it to the table.

As small business owners across the state grapple with an economic downturn that never seems to end, there is heavy emphasis on electing a governor who will listen to the business community and provide solutions to the problems they face collectively.

Rosemary Elebash, state director for the Alabama chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, says the biggest fear on the minds of members of her organization is taxes.

“Based on today’s economic conditions, they have stated loud and clear that they do not want to see new taxes,” said Elebash, whose organization picks issues to address based on a survey of members and their concerns.

The organization also wants some changes in the way the state handles the budgeting process.

“Based on the votes, they want to go to a real-life process versus projections,” Elebash said. “We want it to be based on actual tax dollars collected.”

There also should be real consideration into how much changes in rules affect business owners financially. There are currently national processes in place for these types of evaluations, but none at the state level, she said.

“Our members also expressed that they would like to see state agencies do a real cost/financial analysis on the impact of how much a rule change would cost a small business.”

Jimmy Parrish, head of Alabama operations for TBG Fraud Solutions, says he would like to see initiatives that would encourage and support home-based enterprises. He says there are a large portion of small business owners in Alabama that are operating from home and such initiatives would be beneficial to the state.

“Hardly do you ever hear of anything being done to address that,” Parrish said. “They concentrate on businesses, but often the focus is on larger companies.”

Parrish said there also must be aggressive initiatives to put Alabamians back to work.

“I do believe that the recession got to us later and it’s going to take us longer to recover,” Parrish said. “The recovery is sputtering in some ways.”

Parrish also suggests the state revisits the way it funds education as means to improving the quality of leadership that will inherit the state in the future, he said.

Chris Lewis, owner of L&S Enterprises, says he would like to see an emphasis on involving small businesses earlier in the process as it relates to attracting larger corporations to the state.

“We have to be at the table from the very beginning so that we are aware and have as much time as the larger companies to prepare and find the resources needed to be a part of the process,” Lewis said.

Small businesses should also be included earlier so that they can build the capital needed to have the funds to obtain contracts that come as a result of larger businesses coming to the state.

“By the time you get the business, you’re out of business,” Lewis said.

George Mann, president of Arielsys Technologies agrees.

He added that there should be focus on business growth in both rural and urban areas.

“There needs to be an initiative that looks at fostering cooperation between the cities and the counties,” Mann said. “Sometimes, everyone has a different agenda and that makes it hard to get things done.”

According to the Mann, those disagreements can often reflect poorly on the state, he said,

With regard to state government, Mann would like to state contracts made much more specific and reduced to a scale that smaller businesses are able to handle, he said.

“On some of the packages, they are way too large, and I think they could be broken up a little,” Mann said. “Now that can’t be done for all of them – but there are some that are a bit too broad.”

However, Bill Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama says a lot of the economic problems facing local businesses have to be solved in Washington D.C. and not Montgomery.

“The fate is more dependent on the national structure with regard to controlling the national deficit and reducing unemployment,” Stewart said. “There are a lot of things out of our control.”

But no matter the agenda set forth, there must be a serious effort on the part of the newly elected Governor to build and foster a healthy relationship with the Legislature, he said.

“The Legislature is basically friendly to businesses, and business has a good posture with the Legislature,” Stewart said. “So, its just important that he builds a relationship and get key leadership and work well with them.”

However, he says candidates must get more aggressive in formulating their platforms for business.

“So far, from both candidates, we have heard just generalities,” Stewart said. “We want to know what are the specific proposals from each of them – particularly, what are they going to do to encourage small business.”

There must be a conscious effort to acknowledge that both larger businesses and small business are crucial to the success and economic stability of the state, he said.

“We need both – we need larger businesses because they would create jobs that might bring customers to small businesses.”