Smart Business Resource Center Newsletter
    December 2007 1201 Placer Street - Redding, CA - (530) 246-7911  
California Construction
Contracting Program

buildcalifornia.org

Once you enter this website, the headlines read "$20 billion dollars of infrastructure building bonds means money for you!"

The California Construction Contracting Program is available locally through the Small Business Development Center at Shasta College. It offers the free training and counseling you need to enhance your ability to bid for and win state highway construction contracts.

Shasta College SBDC
1420 Butte Street, Redding
Phone: (530) 225-2770


How to Save $$ on Health Benefits

"By now you’ve read the latest yin and yang of benefits news. Health care premium increases rose at their lowest rate in eight years. But the increase is still more than 6 percent, and that’s still more than twice the rate of inflation. It far exceeds the average annual increase (3.6 percent) for employees in the U.S.

With that data in mind, the reality remains the same. Your benefit cost structure is increasing, and it remains difficult to shift some, much less all, of the increasing costs to employees. The crunch continues, and you’re in the middle..."

Discover
7 Ways to Lower Benefit Costs Without Cutting Coverage
www.workforce.com
Smart Guide to Family Resources

Smart Guide Smart is pleased to announce a new and innovative resource intended to help your employees with children connect to beneficial resources.

Supported by a generous grant from First 5 Shasta, the Smart Guide to Family Resources with its user-friendly companion website, www.shastasmartguide.com, not only lists resources, but most importantly, explains how working families can get the resources.

The Smart Guide focuses on five topics of major significance to working families:
  1. Quality Child Care,
  2. Free and Low Cost Health Coverage and Services,
  3. Parenting Resources,
  4. Nutrition and Physical Activity, and
  5. Building Financial Resources.
An important feature of the Smart Guide is the identification of "doorway" agencies. "Doorway" agencies are local agencies that will help families navigate through the process of identifying and applying for programs.

Find out how these resources help not only your employees but your business as well.

Contact
The Work Supports Program
245-1513

If you are your own boss, consider:

Tax-Free Retirement Accounts
for the Self-Employed


Source: smsmallbiz.com

OSHA Safety Equipment Standard Finalized

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a final rule that says employers will have to pay the full cost for almost all personal safety equipment used by their workers. The rule will go into effect May 2008.

Click here to read the article on workforce.com.

OSHA National News Release
Nov. 14, 2007

Looking ahead...

Things are never static 'round here and as the year comes to an end that hasn't changed, which means, of course, things will (change, that is).

In 2008: The Smart Business Resource Center website will have a new look and a new address on the Internet.

In 2008: Smart Centers will open in two Trinity County locations. Smart will be taking over the one-stop career centers in Weaverville and Hayfork. Our new website will reflect the addition of Trinity County to the Smart family.

In 2008: The 2nd Annual Best Companies to Work For in Shasta County event will take place. Stay tuned...

For now, we wish you a Merry Christmas and an even better New Year.