Local nonprofits and small businesses in unincorporated parts of the Santa Clarita Valley may be seeking support from the county to remain open in light of the minimum wage hike which was passed last week.

The hike will take minimum wage from $9 per hour to $15 per hour by July 1, 2021 and has a lot of small companies worried about the cost of doing business in the unincorporated county.

“When we testified in June that, what we learned from listening to our businesses, this was not going to be a good thing for them,” said Terri Crain, Santa Clarita Chamber of Commerce president and CEO. “It’s going to be struggle to be able to do this.”

Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers, Inc. is a nonprofit based in Val Verde that expects to be hit with challenges when the minimum wage increase is implemented next July.

““I don’t know what we are going to do at this point, we’ve done analysis to see the impacts on all locations, not just Val Verde,” said Philip Solomon, CEO of Samuel Dixon Family Health Centers, Inc. “Without information it’s hard to say what kind of impact it will have on us, it will be a challenge.”

When the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors met on July 21 they discussed a revised motion that was put in place by Supervisor Hilda L. Solis and Supervisor Don Knabe. The motion outlined ways in which the county is planning to help support the small businesses that will likely be affected by the wage increase.

“Whether one supports or opposes an increase to the minimum wage, it is clear that such an increase will pose a real and significant challenge to many businesses, especially the small mom-and-pop businesses that make up so much of the economy in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County (County),” the original motion read. “For this reason, we asked that the vote on the minimum wage motion be postponed until the County could determine how it might use its vast resources to support small businesses through this transition, should a wage increase be approved.”

In response, the county teamed up with Halsey Consulting to provide outreach and survey leading business groups and actual business owners in unincorporated parts of the County.

““The results of their research confirm our hypothesis: that while the County already provides many services for small businesses, there is much much more the County can do,” the motion said.

The county also plans to establish a Small Business Initiative which would support small businesses through the wage increase transition, according to the motion.

“The vast majority of County businesses recently surveyed by the LA County Economic Development Corporation  expected few negative impacts over the five-year implementation of a $15 minimum wage beginning next July 1.” said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. “But our Board recognized that smaller employers deserved a little extra consideration, so we delayed the start date by a year until 2017 for those businesses with 26 or fewer employees, and we approved a Small Business Initiative to be developed within our County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs to assist small business during this transition.”

Some of the other avenues suggested to help the small business include tax relief, fee waivers and expedited licensing and permitting processes.

They are all admiral suggestions,” said Crain. “But the chamber is definitely going to be involved in meetings and discussions to make sure the business community is well represented.”

The Department of Consumer and Business Affairs will be holding meetings to help small businesses cope with the new system and gather information on how the initiative can be improved and developed.

The DCBA will be required to present a report to the board by January 12, 2016.

“I hope the county looks at situations like ours and they provide support so we can continue to give care to those who don’t have resources to get it it elsewhere,” Solomon said.