In early 2009, the State Legislature passed EHB 2242, changing the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED) to the Department of Commerce. In July 2009, during the official name change ceremony, the Governor declared that the new Department of Commerce would focus on ensuring a "successful business environment that provides good, family-wage jobs," and that "We will continue to focus on keeping the companies and jobs we have, and bringing new business to our state."
At WPC's Statewide Small Business Conference last November, new Commerce Director Rogers Weed expressed his surprise at the fact that his department no! t only did not have a team focused on the needs of small businesses, but did not even have one person focused on small businesses.
The old CTED's vision? "Multiply the value of our people, programs and performance through the power of working together." Its mission statement? "Invest in Washington's communities, businesses and families to build a healthy and prosperous future."
More ambiguous statements might be possible, but not likely.
The new Commerce mission statement is "to grow and improve jobs in Washington state."
Its "Defining Commerce" report, issued to the Legislature late last year, lays out the new priority areas for the Department. These include "global" priorities such as competitiveness & innovation, education, workforce training, efficient regulation, and infrastructure investment.
Four other focused priority areas include focuses on rural and small business development and assistance.
This Legislative Session, policymakers are considering proposals that would move several of the old CTED programs out from Commerce and reassign them to departments that are more relevant. It was an understood, if unwritten, fact that CTED had become a catch-all department for programs that had trouble fitting elsewhere.
By the end of 2008, CTED had over 150 programs, many of them having nothing to do with commerce, the business climate or assisting businesses (this probably had something to do with its ridiculous vision and mission statements). HB 2658 / SB 6515 would start the process of reassigning programs such as the County Public Health Assistance, Development and Disabilities Endowment, Community Mobilization, Independent Youth Housing, Office of Crime Advocacy, Drug Prosecution Assistance, Office of Long-Term Care Ombudsman, and others to more appropriate agencies. Take the Office of Crime Advocacy as an example. This should not be in Commerce but should be in a Department such as DSHS, which is better equipped to handle this type of issue.
The goal is to re-focus the Department's activities to become more closely aligned to its mission statement of "growing and improving jobs." A good example of this was moving the small business functions of the Office of Regulatory Assistance out from underneath the Governor's offi! ce and reassigning it to Commerce.
It is important that the Commerce department be able to focus on its mission statement without undertaking programs and projects that do not fit within its core functions.
