City discusses Economic Support Business Sustainability Grant awards

 

[January 07, 2021] 

At the first meeting of the year Monday night the Lincoln City Council approached a difficult situation and worked to come up with a solution that would be beneficial to small businesses in town.

The city had previously rolled out an Economic Support Business Sustainability Grant for small businesses in Lincoln, permitting each qualified business to apply for one $2,500 grant to assist with revenues lost during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday night the council approved eight of 10 applications received. The applications approved included American Legion Post 263, Blue Dog Inn, Café’ Billiards, Cindy’s Cottage, Guzzardo’s Restaurant, H-T-1/Logan Lanes, Mama’s Café’ and the Oasis Senior Center. Applications for Athletic Position and El Mazatlan were put on hold because the approval committee had not had a chance to review the applications before Monday night’s meeting.

After approving the eight applications, Alderman Ron Fleshman asked about the money to pay the grants. Acting Mayor Tracy Welch explained that these were sub-grants through the Department of Economic Opportunity with federal backing. However, they were not part of the CARES/CURES Act that is federal funding passed through to the state.

Fleshman asked if the city had the money in hand and was told that this particular pot of money would not be forthcoming. City Administrator Beth Kavelman explained that the city was expected to file grant applications with DCEO in order to receive about $159,000. The deadline for the grant was 11:59 p.m. on December 11, 2020. Kavelman said she completed the grant on December 11th and submitted it at the end of her work day. However, something had gone wrong with the sending of the grant application.

She said that she had sent the grant and that it had “bounced back to her city administrator email address.” Therefore, it was not received at DCEO in time to make the deadline. Kavelman said she had spoken with someone at DCEO who said it was a glitch in the state system and not her fault, but at the same time, because the grant had not been submitted, there would be no chance of getting the award.

Welch said that even so, there was no guarantee that the city would have gotten the grant. At the same time, there is a very strong probability that the city will receive a grant through the CARES/CURES Act for at least $598,000 and possibly a great deal more. The city can use the CARES/CURES money to make up for the $159,000 that was lost.

Welch said that the next thing the council needed to decide was if the city should suspend the $2,500 grants until the funding was available or should it continue to move forward knowing that the money would be forthcoming.

Kevin Bateman said he had concerns about moving forward. He noted that the first grant had appeared to be a sure thing and it didn’t happen. He wondered if the city could count on the next one coming through.

Kavelman said that she had talked to people at DCEO about the CARES/CURES Grant and felt very confident of getting the $598,000 and also felt that there was a strong possibility that the city could get a figure in excess of $2,000,000. She said that as part of the grant application she needed to submit payroll information from March 2020 to current. Adding that all up, she saw potential for a great deal of money to come into the city coffers.

Bateman commented further saying that the first grant was lost because “we waited” until the last minute to submit it and then there was a glitch. He said he would like to see the next grant application submitted before the deadline by at least 48 hours.

Sam Downs asked how long it would take to get the money after the award was made by DCEO. Kavelman said that she has been told that others are getting the money in as little as a week, some even sooner.

She said she also wanted to respond to the comment by Bateman. She said that doing the grant applications takes a lot of time and effort and she is working solo. She didn’t wait until the last minute intentionally, it took all her time to make the deadline. Plus, she had continued on with her other duties.

Jeff Hoinacki said before going any further, he would like to go back to the original question and get that settled. He said that he would be in favor of suspending the city’s sub-grants to local businesses until it had money in hand.

Steve Parrott asked when the next grant application would be completed. Kavelman said that the deadline for completion and submission was January 31st. Parrott asked when Kavelman would have the application completed and she said she didn’t know. Parrott then asked if Kavelman needed help to complete the application. Kavelman said she had asked for help and didn’t get it.

She said that it appeared that all the payroll information was going to have to be hand typed from the city’s payroll reports into an Excel spreadsheet for the application. She planned to contact DCEO and ask if she could submit the original reports as “exhibits” to the application. If she can that will help, but if not, there is a tremendous amount of work to do just to get the payroll records transferred.

Welch said that he would like to see the grant application fully completed “next week” and that if Kavelman needed help he would get it for her.

Welch then returned to the original question again, suspend the grants or rescind the votes for approval and table the whole project until the money was received?

Sam Downs said he felt the city should table the entire project until the money situation was all worked out.

Bateman said he didn’t want to rescind and table. He wanted the grant applicants in the city to know that the money would be forthcoming. Welch said he agreed with that, and asked if the city should suspend the application process for future grants. Bateman said he thought that future applicants could go ahead and submit their paperwork, but with the understanding that none of those local applications would be reviewed until the CARES/CURES Grant application was completed and sent off.

Parrott voiced concern saying that if the state grant had been lost, then wasn’t the opportunity to award future grants lost also? Welch said yes and no. Yes the opportunity to use the Economic Sustainability money was gone, but the city was not restricted on how it used the CARES/CURES money that would be forthcoming.

Welch said that the CARES/CURES money was for the municipality to cover the impact of coronavirus on city funds and expenditures. At the same time, there were no restrictions on how the city could utilize the money once it was received. Therefore, the city could earmark the original $159,000 for the economic sustainability sub-grants and move forward with the original plan.

Parrott then asked how much coronavirus had cost the city. Welch said he had asked the same question of City Treasure Chuck Conzo and had been told that the city has lost about $270,000 in revenues due to the pandemic. Parrott then speculated that perhaps the city had spent another $30,000 or so on special supplies and provisions for city workers, meaning a total of $300,000 of the $598,000 mentioned earlier was needed by the city. That would leave about $298,000 unobligated, part of which could be used for the completion of the grant program.

Conzo added that the city still doesn’t know what the pandemic will cost all totaled in lost revenue and expenditure. He reminded the council that “it isn’t over yet.”

The end result of the discussion was that the grant applicants who were approved on Monday night would be notified that the money is forthcoming. New grant applicants will be informed that the awarding of grants is on hold pending the receipt of the CARES/CURES Grant funding.

It was strongly recommended that Kavelman spend her time on nothing other than the grant application until it is finished, and she will receive help if needed.

[Nila Smith]