Federal and state initiatives effective in 2011 will have investment, personnel and policy implications across several business sectors.

Perhaps the most sweeping is the federal Small Business Jobs and Credit Act. Informally called mini-TARP after the nation's bank bailout, the legislation includes $30 billion in credit and tax provisions that are expected to spur investment in small business.

Franklin Sciortino, Buffalo district director of the Small Business Administration, said the jobs act has loaned $33 million to 179 small businesses in Western New York since September when President Obama signed it into law. He estimated the infusion of capital has saved or created 30,000 jobs.

More aspects are expected to play out next year, including increased limits of capital available under the SBA's 504 loan program from $2 million to $5 million and microloans of $35,000 to $50,000 for working capital, Sciortino said.

In the first quarter next year, businesses can expect some questions about their safety policies from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The survey is a step in OSHA's agenda to reduce hazards in the workplace by requiring employers to establish a written Injury and Illness Prevention Program.

"Currently, there is no regulation that requires a program on how to handle injuries and illness. It's very broad what companies are doing now," said Robert Doren, managing attorney at Bond Schoeneck & King's Buffalo office.

OSHA wants to create a culture and a system of examining workplace health and safety issues before they happen, Doren said. OSHA proposed the rule midyear and then solicited input in a half-dozen stakeholder meetings across the country. The survey is next.

Doren said the survey will be administered by a third party, which promises that OSHA will get aggregate data only and responding businesses will be anonymous. Final regulations might come by year-end, he said.

Something to watch in 2011 is an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission proposal to eliminate credit history as part of the standard reference check during hiring, said Doren, who represents management in labor and employment issues.

The EEOC believes that the credit check can have a disparate effect on minorities, according to Doren, and was looking for alternatives during a public comment period that ended earlier this month. Among the suggestions, according to the commission's website: asking an applicant's previous employer if the former worker performed adequately, if there are any concerns about the worker's integrity or reliability and whether the employer would rehire the worker.

A final regulation should come out next year. Doren said it will be a precursor to eliminating the other aspects of consumer credit or criminal record checks of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, used as part of vetting potential employees.

Twenty-one provisions of the health-reform law go into effect in 2011, but business has an eye on a pesky one slated to begin in 2012 that will burden companies with extra paperwork and cost, said Craig Turner, vice president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. Tucked deep in the 2,400-page health bill is a requirement that businesses file a 1099 form for everyone with whom they do at least $600 worth of business.

There is some movement in Congress in cutting it from the health-reform act, and that's encouraging to Marves Isaksen, co-owner of Creative Problem Solving Group Inc., Orchard Park. She said it would mean extra time and expense for her five-employee business consulting firm: She would need to collect tax ID numbers, correct DBAs and addresses for vendors such as office supply stores, and track how much is spent. And she would have to pay her usual payroll service to process the additional forms, then be the one to mail them out.

Isaksen wondered aloud whether the provision would include travel expenses, and then estimated she would have to produce about 50 more 1099s a year.

"It would place a tremendous amount of burden on employers," Turner said, "and it has nothing to do with health care."

Next year in New York state: Employers can deduct from workers' wages only insurance premiums, pension or health and welfare benefits, charitable contributions and other benefits. No longer can employers make payroll deductions for money owed to them for things such as loans, damage to company property or purchases from the company cafeteria. Employees must make such payment in a separate transaction, and they can't make a special request that payment comes through deductions.

The state Department of Labor had tolerated the deductions in the past but this year came out definitively against the practice. Labor and employment lawyer James Grasso, a partner in Phillips Lytle in Buffalo, predicts greater enforcement in 2011 of this recent change in the state labor law.

He said employers also should be aware of The Wage Theft Prevention Act, which was passed by the Legislature in November and is awaiting Gov. Paterson's signature. It would have significant impact, he said.

The bill was meant to stop unscrupulous bosses from paying workers less than minimum wage, work off the books and other pay-skimming schemes. It also restores lost revenue to the state in the form of underpaid payroll taxes and stiffens penalties for offenders. All employers would be required to annually disclose to workers the pay they are entitled to and when, such as overtime, Grasso said.

Annemarie Franczyk is a frequent contributor to the Buffalo Law Journal.