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Entrepreneurs want Office of Small Business Advocacy back

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(The Center Square) – Running a business is difficult, especially without help.


Just ask Madisen Saglibene, owner of Pizza Stone’d, a food truck business in Las Vegas. She depended on a state agency to help her deal with the maze of regulations: the Office of Small Business Advocacy.


“From the first moment I reached out, OSBA really lived up to its promise of being a centralized, trusted point of contact for navigating state and local bureaucracies,” Saglibene told The Center Square. “As a food truck operator, they helped me steer through confusion when various city, county and state licensing processes overlapped, and when I was seeking resources.”


Today, OSBA is gone.


It ended when the Democratic majority in the state Legislature killed Senate Bill 5, a funding bill from Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony. The legislation and two other bills from Anthony died because of the Republican official's opposition to biological males playing in female sports, his staff told The Center Square in an exclusive report. 


But the campaign office of Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who did not comment for the original story and is running for Nevada attorney general, denied Tuesday that there was any connection between Anthony's bills being killed and his opposition to transgender athletes in female sports. Instead, her campaign office, which said Cannizzaro was unavailable to talk to The Center Square, blamed Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and Anthony for OSBA's demise.


"Governor Lombardo zeroed out funding for the Office of Small Business Advocacy in his recommended budget that he sent to the Legislature in January," said Peter Koltak, Cannizzaro's campaign spokesman, in a statement to The Center Square. He sent The Center Square an OSBA budget that shows 0 funding recommended from Lombardo's office for 2026-27.


"In the only conversation that the Lt. Governor and Leader Cannizzaro had about his bills, she instructed him to find alternative funding for the OSBA or request that the Governor submit a budget amendment to include the funding, neither of which the Lt. Governor did," Koltak said. "His [Anthony's] other bills likewise cost money that was not accounted for in the budget or were absorbed into other pieces of legislation. Any story he or his staff have come up with since to explain his legislative failures are just excuses to cover for their own laziness during the session."


Besides being majority leader, Cannizzaro is running in the Democratic primary for Nevada attorney general.


The Center Square Tuesday reached out to the Governor's Office. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray called Koltak's comments inaccurate. She said Lombardo couldn't recommend a 2025-27 budget for an office that still had a June 30 expiration date.


"With the expiration (6/30/25) of the Office of Small Business Advocacy within the Office of the Lt. Governor outlined in statute (NRS 224.170), there was not a way to include ongoing funding in the Governor’s Recommended budget for the 2025-2027 biennium," Ray told The Center Square in a statement. "As such, the appropriate path moving forward was to add a fiscal note to SB 5, as SB 5 proposes to remove the prospective expiration date of the Office.


"SB 5 died because legislators failed to advance the bill ahead of deadline," Ray said.


The Center Square also reached out to the Lieutenant Governor's Office but did not get an immediate response.


A source inside Anthony's office previously told The Center Square that Cannizzaro told Anthony that his bills would be killed if he didn't back off the boys-in-girls-sports issue. And Anthony's legislative director, Garrett Tamagni, said the lieutenant governor's legislation didn't advance because of his support for the Protect Women's Sports campaign. 


SB 5, which never received a committee hearing this year, was killed despite the fact Democrats helped to start OSBA. It was launched in 2021 through legislation passed with the support of the Democratic majority in the Legislature and signed by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat.


From the beginning, OSBA was operated through the Lieutenant Governor's Office. The purpose was to create a one-stop shop for small businesses that sought help or information from the government.


OSBA received, reviewed and resolved challenges that small business owners faced, and those interviewed by The Center Square praised OSBA for untangling bureaucratic knots.


Originally set to expire in 2023, OSBA was extended that year until June 2025. Anthony pushed for SB 5 to fund OSBA and make the office permanent. 


The budget for OSBA was approximately $360,000 annually. Discussions were held around funding OSBA through an additional — or even optional — fee on business license applications. This approach would have covered the cost of the office and its three full-time employees. 


Employees at OSBA were laid off because of the Democrats' decision to let SB 5 die on April 12 through inaction by the Senate Government Affairs Committee. The bill never got a hearing.


And business owners said they felt the impact.


Saglibene said OSBA had information on pending legislation that would affect her line of work, helping to provide insight into what was going on in Carson City, Nevada's capital. "It's not always easy to follow the bills on NELIS (Nevada Electronic Legislative Information System)."


The food truck owner described OSBA's employees as people with “genuine passion," adding that employees listened, followed up and made it easier to move forward with confidence.


"Because of OSBA, I felt like my voice and challenges mattered, and as a woman business owner, that sense of being seen and supported made all the difference," said Saglibene.


She said OSBA's fate shouldn't be tied to Anthony's opposition to biological males in female sports.


"The reality is, the politics around its reauthorization have sidelined something that was working for everyday entrepreneurs," Saglibene told The Center Square Tuesday. "While we as a business don’t engage in party politics, it deeply saddens me when small business support gets caught in legislative crosswinds.


"For women-owned businesses in particular, having OSBA’s kind of support meant a lot, and I know many others felt the same way," the business owner said. "Reauthorizing OSBA would send a clear signal that Nevada values small business health, growth, and fairness, and not just 'slogans' about being business-friendly. I hope to see legislators who understand that pragmatic support for small businesses should transcend party lines, and I hope they work to restore OSBA in a way that reflects the original vision while gaining stronger long-term commitment."


Soo-Jin Yang owns Illumino Lashes in Las Vegas. She turned to OSBA when a state inspector told her she couldn't teach in Nevada.


"Imagine your business is nearly shut down because more than half of your revenue comes from teaching your patented eyelash extension method in a hands-on classroom setting here in Las Vegas," Yang told The Center Square. "So you do what every business owner would do — you call the 1-800 number on the state (cosmetology) board's website. After a period being put on hold, you finally reach a human, only to realize you are talking to the wrong person. They transfer you, you get the runaround, and the next person says, 'Sorry, there's nothing I can do.'


"You hang up hours later with zero progress and a lot of frustration," Yang said.


After reaching out to OSBA, Yang said her contact there became her "business angel," one who was “proactive, kind and determined to help.”


Instead of sending Yang a link or telling her to check a website, Yang said her OSBA contact "personally picked up the phone and reached out multiple times to different people to get clarification" on why Yang could not teach her patented method. This occurred again for several weeks, until OSBA got the right person.


Yang likened it to OSBA untangling "bureaucratic knots" that she could not undo on her own.


"In my case, an inspector from the Nevada State Board of Cosmetology told me I couldn't legally teach in the state — a claim that wasn't actually based on any law," said Yang. "OSBA intervened, called the board several times and worked diligently to get a clear answer. Thanks to their persistence, the issue was resolved, and my business was able to reopen after being shut down for several weeks."


Sarah Reeves Johnson, former director of OSBA, said her team worked hard to make a difference for Nevadans trying to make a living and create jobs.


"Nevada is ranked as the most occupationally licensed state in the country, and that burden falls hardest on our rural, minority and female entrepreneurs," Reeves Johnson told The Center Square. "This was something OSBA was hyperfocused on fixing for Nevada - right up until our funding was stripped away."


Pointing to the last legislative session, Reeves Johnson said OSBA and allies at the Institute for Justice crafted legislation that lessened cottage food, beauty industry and handyman regulations for hardworking small business owners. Of the "hundreds of complaints" that OSBA received, Reeves Johnson said nearly 70% came down to licensing, regulations and confusion over how to stay on the right side of the law.


"Nevada's small business owners don't need more paperwork and penalties," said Reeves Johnson. "They need clarity, consistency and a state that sees them as partners, not targets." 


According to OSBA's 2025 Biennial Report, there are 334,471 small businesses in Nevada. Most of those businesses have fewer than 20 employees, and small businesses represent 99.3% of all businesses in the state. Related 2025 data from the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy shows that women own 46% of businesses in Nevada.


Tray Abney, Nevada state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said his organization wanted OSBA to stay permanent.


"We feel it is unfortunate that this issue, that assistance for small businesses, got caught up in issues that have nothing to do with small businesses," Abney told The Center Square. 


Yang, who credits OSBA with keeping her in business, said she wants legislators to bring the office back.


“Nevada small businesses desperately need OSBA back,” the Illumino Lashes owner said. “They were the essential communication between entrepreneurs and the maze of state agencies that too often leave us unheard and unsupported. Without them, small business owners are left to fend for themselves.”


Saglibene would also like to see OSBA return. She said her current efforts to communicate with state and federal legislators have not been successful.


It was much easier with OSBA, the Pizza Stone’d truck owner said. “I wanted to feel cared for, and OSBA really did that."

 

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