MANKATO — U.S. Sen. Al Franken sent staff members to Mankato Tuesday to get specific ideas about how to create jobs. They got some of that.

But even more, the Franken staffers heard heart-felt testimony about the desperate need for an improvement in the job market and the economy in general.

Union leaders talked about half of their members in the construction trades being out of work. Government workforce officials said the regional average has now reached nearly 10 applicants for every job opening. A state economic development representative said even employers who are hiring are afraid to offer anything other than temporary or part-time jobs.

“The biggest problem is the banks,” said businessman Joe Boettcher. “How do we get them loosened up?”

That was one area of near-consensus among the dozen people who spoke at the hearing in downtown Mankato Tuesday, the second of 15 Franken’s staff will be holding around the state. Specifically, several asked that more money be made available to cover the gap  between what private banks are willing to lend and the required loan to start or expand a new business.

Often, that gap funding is only a small percentage of what’s needed, but it can make the difference between whether a new business gets off the ground.

“It helps free up the private sector investments,” said Tim Penny, president of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. “Because the banks have money to lend. But rightfully, they’re being a lot more conservative in this environment.”

The Initiative Foundation had about $1 million to lend to close the gap left by private banks, but that money was gone about nine months into the year, Penny said. For the final three months, prospective businesses were told they’d need to wait — meaning the jobs that come with new businesses are also waiting to be created.

It’s often a matter of a few thousand dollars, said Mike Nolan, director of Region Nine’s Small Business Development Center.

He mentioned an electrician who wanted to set up business in Mankato, potentially employing numerous people. In the past, a bank would have loaned the entire amount needed. With stricter lending rules, there’s now a gap of $9,000 to $10,000 to get the deal done.

Even smaller amounts could help small-town businesses get started, Nolan said. And those can be just as meaningful on the struggling Main Streets of the small towns of the region.

“In Kilkenny, Minnesota, just having one new place open up on Main Street just changes the feel of the town,” he said.

North Mankato City Administrator Wendell Sande echoed the point, talking of several projects where gap funding provided through the city’s economic development arm was combined with private loans, state grants and lending from a local power company. But the city’s money is now completely loaned out.

“Our entire loan fund is committed,” Sande said. “We’re cash broke.”

Nate Arch, Franken’s St. Peter-based field representative, promised to take specific ideas to Franken. He and Franken spokesman Marc Kimball also presented the freshman senator’s job plan, based on a Minnesota program that got 7,400 people hired in six months in the 1980s.

Franken’s plan would provide government subsidies to cover up to 50 percent of the wages of new employees, a subsidy that would be capped at $12 per hour. The cap would rise to 60 percent for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The subsidy would expire after one year, and the final three months of the subsidy would be withheld until it was verified that the job still existed after 15 months. Franken would commit $5 billion to the program on a first-come, first-serve basis. Another $5 billion would be aimed at retrofitting schools, libraries and other public buildings to increase energy efficiency — which aims to create construction jobs while reducing dependence on foreign energy.