By REP. PHYLLIS GUTIERREZ KENNEY

As a former small business owner who has had to juggle the demands of meeting a payroll, paying business taxes and helping raise a family, I'm well aware of the challenges faced by tens of thousands of Washington state's entrepreneurs.

I'm talking about the people who run restaurants, start-up companies, mom-and-pop groceries and the countless other enterprises across our state.

These are the people who make our state's economy run. They bring new ideas into the economy and provide opportunities for thousands of working people.

More Washington citizens go to work each day at a local, family-owned business than to a Boeing or a Weyerhaeuser. And when workers at those large corporations get laid-off due to the fluctuating markets, they very often seek employment from folks like you.

In many cases, the family business is the family legacy. As a lawmaker, I know that supporting these businesses is critical to our ability to care for the families of Washington. I hear this from many small business owners across the state. What's more, plenty of data confirm what most Washington business owners tell me in person.

According to a 1998 report by the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses are the bedrock of the state's economy. The SBA found that Washington in 1997 had nearly 175,000 businesses with employees, of which nearly 98.3 percent had fewer than 500 workers. The same year, the SBA counted another 269,000 self-employed persons.

In recent years, women and minorities have made strong inroads into this sector of our state's economy. According to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, in 1996 Washington had 188,400 women-owned businesses, which employed 509,800 people and generated a whopping $61.6 billion in sales. Between 1987 and 1996, the number of women-owned businesses increased nearly two-fold. Not all of these businesses are small, but most are.

In fact, the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metro area ranks third in the nation in terms of growth, employment and sales among women-owned firms (following our neighbors in Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore.).

All told, 91,000 women-owned firms in our area created sales of $38 billion and employed more than 311,000 people in 1996.

Recent U.S. Census Bureau data also shows a growth in the number of black-owned firms in our state. Their numbers jumped 77.1 percent in the five years following 1987, to nearly 4,600 firms in 1992. For Hispanic-owned firms, growth during that same five-year period, was 127 percent. Asian-, Pacific Islander-, Native American- and Alaska Native-owned businesses grew at a strong 90 percent clip as well during that time span.

Many of these small businesses are having trouble finding and training and retaining skilled workers. Educating our workforce should high on our priority list. In many rural and inner-urban areas, communities are seeing high unemployment rates and a drop in the number of independent businesses.

I want to see these businesses expand and create more jobs because we know as well as everyone that they are the key to a strong economic future in Washington state, from Seattle to Spokane.

During the 2000 state Legislative season, which starts Jan. 10, my Caucus colleagues and I will be working to meet the needs of our state's smaller employers. We will propose fiscally-responsible measures targeted at community and commercial revitalization. These efforts seek to expand community empowerment zones and provide incentives for commercial area revitalization. We think it's right for government to invest in employers and working families.

We must help people working in small businesses by providing greater access to affordable health-care insurance. In King County and 30 other counties statewide, individual health-care insurance has disappeared. That means small business owners and their employees can't find insurance they need for themselves and their families.

This session, House Democrats, working with Gov. Gary Locke, are proposing to reopen this market to individuals and small groups. Because about one in 10 state residents lacks health insurance, it is crucial we develop a bipartisan proposal that meets the needs of small employers, their workers and health-insurance providers.

Finally, we are proposing to head off scheduled increases in the state's unemployment insurance taxes. Today, the state's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which provides benefits for laid-off workers, has a healthy reserve of $1.7 billion.

In January, however, the state Employment Security Department will send higher tax bills to all employers because of automatic tax-rate changes that have been triggered by big gains in the software field and overall wage gains in our state economy.

Democrats know our goals won't be easy during a 60-day Legislative session that will be dominated by responses to funding cuts due to the recent passage of Initiative 695. But we are committed to work with small businesses so they can continue doing what they do best - providing opportunity and jobs in our economy.

Rep. Phyllis Kenney (D-Seattle) represents the 46th Legislative District in Seattle, including the communities of Green Lake, Hawthorne Hills, View Ridge, Northgate, Greenwood, Northgate, Pinehurst and Lake City. Her office is located beside the Jet City Maven.