Obtaining federal pandemic aid for Bradenton businesses proves challenging in many ways
Bradenton area businesses are finding that the alphabet soup of regulations in three major bills passed by Congress in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic can be anything but user friendly.
Rob Lederhilger of Enterprise Service Level in East Manatee applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program under the recently passed $2 trillion CARES Act.
“The CARES Act states that $10,000 grants are to be disbursed to applicants within three days of SBA’s receipt of a successfully submitted application, yet no business owner to my knowledge has received these funds — it has now been more than seven days after the application period opened,” Lederhilger said in an email.
“I think the Small Business Administration is making up its own rules,” he told the Herald in a phone interview Tuesday.
Lederhilger took his concern to Congress and received a response from the office of Rep. Vern Buchanan of Longboat Key:
“I contacted the local SBA office to inquire as to why loans have not been dispersed even after the three days previously mentioned had passed. I was advised that the portion which indicated three days has been removed due to the sheer volume of applicants. Unfortunately, I was told that it will more likely be within three weeks,” a constituent services rep said in an email to Lederhilger.
The CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security) Act revised the EIDL to make the application process quicker. In addition, the law gave businesses the ability to request and receive a $10,000 emergency grant within three days regardless if the applicant was approved or denied. The application was officially updated on March 29, Lederhilger said.
Janene Amick, executive director of the Manatee Performing Arts Center, this week applied for aid under the Paycheck Protection Program, abbreviated PPP.
Working from home, she found that the process took hours of laborious research, often because she needed information that she did not keep at home.
“It’s almost like writing a grant request,” she said of the amount of detail required by the PPP. “It took so long because people are pulling information in a new way and people are still learning technology. This will make everyone tech savvy. To give everyone the benefit of a doubt, they were doing the best that they could. Their help desk got back to me immediately,” Amick said.
The Manatee Chamber of Commerce has been trying to assist the business community by posting links on its web page with information about governmental assistance that is available.
The Chamber also created a Manatee Strong Facebook page and invited the community to post COVID-19 related information, issues, and problems there.
A recent webinar with Moore Hallmark, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president, is also posted on the Manatee Strong Facebook page where Hallmark explains the various bills and answers audience questions.
“This bill last week (the $2 trillion CARES bill) was not the first. It was the third,” Hallmark said. The first bill was a $2 billion infusion to the Centers for Disease Control and the health care sector. The second bill was for Families First, which provided guidance and funding for the unemployment program.
“No family and no business should go bankrupt because of the hardship caused by COVID-19,” Hallmark said.
