FAIRBORN — Fairborn City Council approved a grant April 20 appropriating $162,642 to the Community Development Block Grant funds which will go toward assisting local businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The CARES Act has made some funding available in what’s called the Community Development Block Grant coronavirus fund to be allocated to jurisdictions based upon the 2020 funding formula. This represents city’s portion of that funding,” Fairborn Assistant Finance Director Annetta Williams said in her virtual presentation to council. “Staff is planning to use it to help small businesses with rent, utilities and other capital needs during this time.”
Fairborn Development Services Assistant Director Missy Frost explained that businesses with 25 or less employees are eligible to receive money.
“They have opportunity to apply on first-come, first-serve basis,” Frost said. “If we have an overrun of businesses that are interested and we don’t have enough funds, unfortunately we will have to see in the 2020 funding program if there would be additional funds we can allocate at that time, but that would be a few months down the road once we get that process squared away and that would give us a little time to see where we’re at with this current funding and whether we have a need to continue the program and extend it further out.”
Frost said members of the city’s economic development team will be in contact with business owners. First they will try to get in touch electronically.
“If necessary, we’ll go door-to-door and have conversations,” she said.
The maximum amount a business can receive is $5,000 if they can retain one low-income job within three months. If they can retain two, they are eligible to receive up to $10,000. The city would also need verification that they met those requirements.
Frost explained that the program is essentially a three-year loan with zero-percent interest. If business owners are able to provide documentation that they met the requirements involving retaining low-income jobs within three months, then the loan would be forgiven over a three-year period. If business owners do not meet the requirements, the first 12 months of the loan would be deferred, but they would have to repay the dollar amount in the following 24 months.
