A new report that’s getting circulated around the state is reinforcing Iowa’s reputation as a weak place to start a new business.

The report, by bCentral.com columnist Philipp Harper, concludes that Iowa is the worst state in the nation in which to start a new company. Ouch.

To reach his conclusions, Harper measured electricity costs, workers’ compensation costs, total crime rate, whether a state has right-to-work laws, the number of bureaucrats and the state’s overall tax burden.

Getting Iowa’s economy to grow faster is near the top of everyone’s priority list, including that of Gov. Tom Vilsack. For the past several months, I had been meaning to do an analysis of how businesses outside Iowa view our state.

Now Harper’s column shows up, and a pro-tax reform group called Iowans for Tax Relief got hold of it and shipped it around.

The press release the group sent along with the column is filled with enough cliches and invective to damage the group’s credibility, in my eyes. Still, its point is acknowledged: Taxes and government regulatory burdens need to be lowered.

The reaction to Harper’s column in some quarters has been a nod and a shrug, followed by a patient response that state business and political leaders have acknowledged the problem and are working to solve it. They offer the Iowa Values Fund and proposed tax cuts as evidence that there is discussion and action on the subject.

“I think we already know that our state and our local communities still have a lot of work to do to provide a more support for start-up companies and entrepreneurs,” said Dan Huber, president of the Davenport One, that city’s chamber of commerce and community development group. “If the survey is something that adds impetus for that to occur, all the better. I think it’s something we’re already working toward.”

Even more promising, the Iowa Business Council is currently putting together so-called industry hot teams, groups of people skilled in particular industries who will be able to help young companies get off the ground.

The council is also creating a Web site for new companies that will include a variety of information, such as how entrepreneurs can find funding and mentoring services.

Harper’s column is based on two reports that were released a year ago, “Small Business Survival Index 2002: Ranking the Policy Environment for Entrepreneurship Across the Nation” and “Entrepreneurial Hot Spots: The Best Places in America to Start and Grow a Company, 2001.”

Perception always trumps reality, of course, but I think it’s misleading to rely on Harper’s conclusions. For instance, electricity costs aren’t a problem, Iowa has right-to-work laws, minimum wage regulations aren’t high and crime is low.

Taxes are a problem – but they’re a problem everywhere outside of the Channel Islands. Bureaucracy here is troublesome. Why Iowa needs 99 counties and all of the resulting red tape is completely beyond me.

For residents of Greater Des Moines, the survey has almost no applicability. The city was ranked as the eighth-best place to live by Forbes magazine, which is a listing that Harper used in his analysis. The city was also named one of the top places in which to locate a biotechnology company.