LeadingAge recently met with a representative from the SBA Office of the National Ombudsman. The office helps small businesses, associations, and nonprofits when they experience excessive or unfair federal regulatory enforcement actions. Such actions include repetitive audits or investigations, excessive fines, penalties, threats, retaliation, or other unfair enforcement action. Here is a flyer that explains what the office does and how to file a complaint through their web portal – and should take no longer than 15 minutes. The complaint is assigned to a member of the small ombudsman team who sends a formal letter to the agency in question for response. The federal agency has 30 days to respond to the SBA ombudsman request. The SBA Ombudsman sends a yearly report to Congress summarizing the types and number of complaints filed with their office as well as the responsiveness of each agency in acting on the complaints. Members may want to consider using this process. LeadingAge national is exploring using this process to support our advocacy work on behalf of members.
