Many struggling small businesses are about to get hit with another bill - unemployment insurance.

Mabel Rosas, of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Rand Realty, says furloughs and reduced hours were the necessary evil to keep the lights on.

"We've done everything we could to keep as many employees as possible, but it's been out of control because real estate came to a dead stop," she says.

Rosas, the company's director of operations, says with unemployment insurance, she expects their costs to double, thanks to furloughs driving down business ratings.

"If you were actually lucky enough to survive this crisis, then you shouldn't be penalized with negative unemployment ratings because you didn't have a choice, you were forced to lay off," she says.

A businesses experience rating boils down to this: the more people you lay off, the more you pay for unemployment insurance.

There is now legislation in the works to help businesses throughout New York with that issue.

Two local lawmakers, Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski and state Sen. David Carlucci, argue that layoffs associated with a pandemic are extraordinary circumstances no business owner could avoid.

"Now we need to do to what we can in New York state to make sure our local businesses aren't going to face thousands of dollars in increased costs in the future," says Zabrowski.

Carlucci says if they don't pass the legislation, it will be a detrimental impact to the expenses small business owners have to pay in New York for years.