8.13.20 – Holly Duchmann -Greater Baton Rouge Business Report
The state treasury department will send out the first round of checks Wednesday for Louisiana’s Main Street Recovery Grant program, benefitting the smallest of Louisiana small businesses.
The program, which issues grants for up to $15,000 for COVID-19-related expenses, launched late last month and has received 12,000 submitted applications from Louisiana businesses, said Treasurer John Schroder during a Baton Rouge Area Chamber-hosted webinar this morning about the program.
Of the 12,000 applications received, 78% have been from minority-, women- or veteran-owned businesses, according to Schroder. As of Monday, 1,900 applications have come from Baton Rouge businesses.
To be eligible for the grants, businesses must be located in Louisiana, cannot have had more than 50 full-time workers as of March 1, and can’t be a subsidiary of or owned by a larger company with more than 50 full-time employees.https://2e5f964f474aeb45cb6b504abb2621b3.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
In addition, the business must be in good standing with the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office, and have filed taxes for either 2018 or 2019, filed an extension for 2019, or will file taxes in 2020.
One of the largest misnomers the department is facing, according to Schroder, is that a business is not disqualified for the program if it has received federally backed financial aid, like a PPP or SBA loan.https://2e5f964f474aeb45cb6b504abb2621b3.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
While applications for businesses that have received federal aid will not be processed by the state until Aug. 18, those businesses are still welcome to apply for the program before that date.
If a company has received less than $1,000 of federal aid or none at all, it’s eligible for up to $5,000 in Quick Relief funds.
Some 65% of applications have accepted the $5,000 Quick Relief check, but Shroder says many of them are eligible to receive a lot more money, so the department is trying to reach back out to those businesses.
“We’ve got $40 million set aside for this,” Schroder says. “We still have a long way to go before we run out of money.”