Sara Smith of SMG participated in a meeting arranged through the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce with members the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office who are charged with developing and managing the Kentucky One Stop Business Portal (http://onestop.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx). This web portal is being developed in response to legislation in the 2011 Legislative Session (Senate Bill 8) which mandated a unified point of entry for businesses to interface with state government. The portal and the initiative will be in continuing development for some time although portions of your interaction with state government are already available.
In general, the currently available functions are designed to help with new businesses just setting up in Kentucky. There are tools to determine the actions necessary to register as a business, obtain licenses and permits and tax registration. Much of the information available is in the form of articles and links to other sites.
The development of this tool could be particularly helpful to small businesses starting up by directing them quickly to state resources. The integration of other issues that SMG generally addresses, such as environmental permitting and compliance, will likely remain connected to the portal through links to regulatory agencies.