MANSFIELD ─ Richland County offered more than $2.7 million for 468 small businesses and nonprofits through the CARES Act federal funds, according to the Richland Area Chamber and Economic Development.
The chamber’s president and CEO Jodie Perry gave a report about the COVID-19 Small Business Emergency Relief Grant Program at the county commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday morning.
Perry said processing the requests was a good opportunity for the chamber to talk to businesses and understand what other things they needed. It was surprising to find out some companies were keeping a low profile but doing pretty substantial businesses.
With two rounds of small business grants and one for 501c3 nonprofits, Perry said Richland County funded the eligible requests at $2,705,324 in total. The fund came from the county, Mansfield, Shelby, Ontario, Lexington, Plymouth and Bellville. Most businesses received $7,500 or $2,500, depending on their size.
The first round was for small businesses with 20 or fewer employees and $1.5 million or less in revenues. Perry said the chamber received 367 applications with some of them even from California and Michigan, which were not eligible. Ultimately, 221 applications were approved and $1,274,606 was granted.
The chamber adjusted the eligibility in the second round of small business grant, Perry said. Companies with 40 or fewer employees and $4 million or less in revenue were eligible. Certain types of nonprofits were allowed to apply for it as well.
Perry said 205 of the 239 applications were approved in the second round. In total, $1,156,830 was given out.
The grant program showed how businesses’ financial burden was getting worse over time. Perry said in both rounds of grants, the chamber asked the applicants about their financial impact of COVID-19, including decreased revenues or increased expenses.
In the first round, the majority of the businesses experienced 1 percent to 20 percent of financial impact. Twenty-nine percent of them were hit financially more than 60 percent. Perry said that number went up in round two. Thirty-three percent of the applicants said the impact was more than 60 percent.
“As the year is going on, businesses are seeing more impact, which also makes sense. This timing was like the end of October, early November. So we’re just hitting into that surge,” she said of the second round grant.
The grants for both rounds mostly went to businesses with a history of at least 11 years, Perry said. The majority of them have two to five, or less than two full-time employees. Among those who disclosed the business status, most of them were owned by women.
When looking at the awards by business type, Perry said most of the recipients were in services (except public administration), accommodation and food services, healthcare and social assistance and retail trade.
As for the nonprofit grants, the chamber received 42 eligible applications and funded $273,888 in total. Perry said the number of applications was not as high as she expected.
Commissioner Marilyn John thanked Perry and the chamber for handling the grant program. She said while Richland County is considered a medium-sized county, there is no county administrator or grant department. The commissioners thought it was in the county’s best interest to partner with the chamber to execute the program.
In other business, the county commissioners approved the 2021 general fund budget at $38,491,692.23 in the meeting. They also approved the Coronavirus Relief Funding reimbursement requests from the Sheriff, auditor/commissioners and child support. The total request amount was $78,564.03.
By the commissioners’ Tuesday meeting, Richland County still had more than $371,000 of Coronavirus Relief Funds not appropriated. Commissioner Tony Vero made a motion to appropriate the money to the public safety payroll and was supported by other commissioners.
The original deadline for spending the fund was on December 31. While President Trump has signed a bill to extend the deadline for one year, Vero said the state of Ohio has to go through a process to change the date as well. The resolution was to make sure the county can use all the money from the federal fund.
Additionally, the commissioners approved to transfer more than $2 million to the capital projects fund. The money was from the county’s revenue this year. The revenue was $4.5 million more than the expense in 2020. The rest of the difference will be used for general fund 2020 encumbrances, balancing the 2021 budget, records management and other purposes.
