The commissioners received $18.7 million in CARES Act funding and earmarked $1.5 million for sub-grants to the large cities and townships to help their small businesses. The board divided the money according to population, and nine jurisdictions will receive the funds.
County guidelines limit the awards to businesses with fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees, and no single grant can exceed $10,000. The money must be spent before Dec. 30.
The townships have some eligibility requirements as well. Businesses must have operated brick and mortar establishments since January 2019. They have to be able to prove they were harmed with revenue losses during the pandemic and produce receipts or documentation. They will cover things like the usual personnel protective equipment, plexiglass barriers and other COVID fighting materials. They will also reimburse for rent or mortgage, utilities and payroll.
The townships have their applications on their websites and are sending out “blast” emails to their businesses to alert them to the grant opportunity. Both programs went live today and Liberty’s application window closes Dec. 4, West Chester businesses have until Dec. 11, grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
West Chester Trustee Mark Welch wasn’t keen on the first-in-line concept. He said he’d rather divide the money evenly among all eligible applicants.
“I just want to go on record as saying I don’t think this is the best way to do it,” Welch said. “Because what I don’t want to have later is business people come up to me and say I didn’t know anything about this, why did you guys do it this way.”
If 500 people applied, the per person share would only be $575, and everyone, including Welch, ultimately agreed that amount wouldn’t be worth the effort of applying and gathering all the documentation.
“I know it’s not perfect,” Township Administrator Larry Burks said. “It was a very difficult process to put together quickly but we feel we have an equitable solution to it. It isn’t easy to apply that’s for sure, but it shouldn’t take long for someone with the proper record keeping to apply. We feel that if we can get 100 applications that would be a huge success.”
Liberty Twp. Trustee Steve Schramm was also concerned earlier about who would pick grant awardees if the task fell to the trustees.
“We’re taking the trustees out, I was a little bit concerned with the look of that politically, with having trustees make that decision,” Schramm said. “So it’s going to be handled by staff.”
He was also concerned the township would be left holding the bag if the county denied any grants the township approved. Economic Development Director Caroline McKinney said they discussed this issue with the county.
“The board wanted to make sure we’re not writing checks before verifying that we’re going to get reimbursed too,” McKinney said. “The county has said kind of ‘sure’ to that checkpoint, so that once we get the documentation we will ask them for that verification, so everybody is on the same page that if we reimburse it, we will also be reimbursed.”
Business owners should read all of the restrictions because they differ by community, and the county didn’t regulate everything about the grant programs. For instance, West Chester also has a restriction the business must have earnings in the $50,000 to $1 million range.
Liberty Twp. trustee Tom Farrell said he is glad they can help.
“It’s not going to change their life ... but every little bit helps,” Farrell said. “If this can help any of our businesses to make it through these tough times we want to make sure they have the opportunity to get the money.”
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