Rauner signs bill aimed at cutting red tape for small businesses

The new law encourages state agencies to weed out rules and regulations that hurt Illinois' entrepreneurs.

On Aug. 14, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law House Bill 3887, sponsored by Rep. Keith Wheeler, R–North Aurora, and Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, D–Plainfield. The new law mandates increased scrutiny of the regulations that burden small businesses in Illinois.

HB 3887 requires state executive-branch agencies, defined to include officers, boards and commissions, among other entities, to review their rules, regulations and permitting processes that affect small businesses every five years to identify rules that are “unreasonable, unduly burdensome, duplicative, or onerous.” The goal of the law is for agencies to recommend changes that can relieve small-business owners of unnecessary compliance burdens and costs.

The Illinois state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, Kim Clarke Maisch, issued a statement praising the law and reiterating the need for it. Maisch said:

“This is a big deal to small businesses. … Small businesses usually don’t have and can’t afford compliance officers and a team of lawyers to keep up with state regulations. HB 3887 is going to help small businesses by weeding out rules and regulations that are no longer needed and create a real hardship in terms of the cost of compliance.”

Illinois Policy Action supported HB 3887 as an important step in making Illinois friendlier to small businesses and entrepreneurship.