A new state watchdog set up to protect small-business interests will likely start meeting in the next month as part of a push by the Sanford administration to make regulations more friendly for the little guy.

The 11-member Small Business Regulatory Review Committee is a product of a bill signed into law last year that requires new and existing rules within various state agencies to be looked over by the committee. The group will offer suggestions on how to tweak regulations it feels are burdensome.

The Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Act was one of the few pieces of legislation promoted by Gov. Mark Sanford that passed muster with lawmakers last year. The law took effect Jan. 1, and the committee is now nearly complete.

Ten members are appointed, and the governor's office said Wednesday that the final member's paperwork should be processed in the next few days. To sit on the panel, members must be current or former small-business owners.

Sanford picked Columbia businessman Paul "Monty" Felix to chair the committee, which will work within the framework of the Department of Commerce. The governor gets to select five members, while Senator Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, and House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, are both given three picks apiece.

"Regulations are a big deal when you are a small business," said Felix, who owns a pool company with his wife. "We don't have big staffs, and compliance efforts are costly. There's a need to be sensitive and take into account how laws affect us."

Felix said he has met recently with commerce department staff to work out the administrative and logistical kinks. He also has phoned some committee members and is trying to set a date to meet to establish bylaws.

"The sooner the better," he said. "Small businesses are such a big engine for growth in this state that our voices need to be adequately heard."

Small businesses increasingly are seen as the bedrock of the state and national economy because they collectively hire more often and contribute more to growth than big business. Unlike corporations, the state's roughly 95,000 small business are not likely to uproot and shift operations overseas.

The new committee mirrors similar efforts in almost a dozen other states. In South Carolina, any state lawmaker or agency seeking to send a regulation to the General Assembly for approval must first submit plans to the committee.

Recommendations could include simplifying reporting standards for small businesses and exempting them from certain requirements as a way to pare down paperwork.

The committee will have 90 days to review new regulations and a five-year window to look at those already on the books.

The panel can only make suggestions, however, and only the agencies have the power to rescind or amend a regulation.

David Parrish, a Charleston attorney with law firm Nexsen Pruet, was chosen by McConnell to sit on the committee. Parrish, who also owns a small rental property, pointed out that small-business owners must realize that the committee can discuss only state regulations, not federal or municipal rules.

Even so, he thinks the panel can have an impact. "Our whole purpose is to balance the public health and welfare from what we see as burdensome regulations," he said. "I'm confident we'll find less intrusive ways that will help small business."

Other Charleston appointees include Charles R. Towne of Bumper-to-Bumper Auto Parts and Evelyn Reis Perry of Carolina Sound Communications.

Frank Knapp, president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber, said the legislation spurred the establishment of a local version of the committee in Columbia that has been up and running for two months.

"I'm happy to hear the state committee will be meeting soon," said Knapp, who chairs the Columbia committee and lobbied for the state legislation last year. "I wish it (the state committee) could have gotten started earlier. ... It has important work to do."