Industry sign banking connecticut forbearance agreement online
I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of the main resource coronavirus much of the information that we're gonna talk about on this call is up on that website and for businesses and nonprofits there is a separate section for business resources on that book so with that I'm gonna turn it over to governor Lamont David Thank You Eleanor good afternoon everybody appreciate your spending a little time let me just give you a quick update from a different point of view on where we are in our response to the occultic crisis and then we'll get into our economic response in more detail usually I've been giving everybody the number of people who are infected the number of tests and number of hospitalizations the really key parameter that we're looking at is hospitalization number infections is obviously influenced by the number of tests and where the tests are high flotation gives us a much better sense of where we are in terms of our capacity and I think you've heard over the last few days the stuff the good news is that the curve is beginning to bend a little bit and that buys our hospital time even those in southern Fairfield County which obviously got hit earliest and first still have capacity and still have a vent PBE and ICU so we think that curve is bending and we hope that if we continue the social distancing that we will have the capacity we need in our hospital system one way that we've looked at it a little differently is that our number of people hospitalized is dropped today to the lowest amount in a two weeks that's 46 net hospitalization and I'm just taking a look at the numbers as we break them down that's one fewer person hospitalized in Fairfield County today compared to yesterday that means in a very slight way we are um gaining a little capacity now and obviously the the virus is spreading up through New Haven County where it's growing the fastest and then Hartford Eastern and North Western Connecticut let's hit at this point which means they have a much more capacity for a social testing and make sure that we can isolate people I can tell you that we're thinking about the day after in a couple of different ways we'll talk about what we're trying to do with our PPP loan and with our you know forgivable loans that David is set up for decd hoping to keep small businesses intact so as we get towards the backside of this our companies are able to keep going again and keep their employees in place what I'm doing on the pandemic side of this is working with a number of different companies right now the do the anybody testing so that in addition to what we're doing with Abbott Labs which is the five-minute test the 15-minute test setting up those clinics down and Stamford a New Haven which is where urban areas that have the most density of the disease right now what we're doing with the blood tests over a period of time is allows us to see who it's been infected over the last 60 days and who was developed the antibody and obviously we know we probably don't test for 1020 percent of the people who are actually infest infected to see if they have the virus this would be a broad-based program that allows you to see what people can get back to work first we'd probably be focusing the antibody testing on first responders focusing on advanced manufacturing a lot of which is in the or the supply chain folks that by law we have to keep open doing everything we can to keep those facilities safe and healthy and I think we'll be having some news about how we start rolling that out over the next two to three weeks it's just in prototype right now you know David's group that did the you know Bohr short-term loans the good news is I think he's going to be able to start getting them those loans processed over the course the next two weeks or so and I think that's going to provide an important bridge to incredible help for getting with the PPP the Paycheck protection and for that I just want to say um defects get a lot of great for being a little slow off the draw in this but not mark a word he's been a sense of collaboration we had was a small business has been incredibly helpful I'm gonna go on mute now so I can hear what it looks like getting those loans out the door back to you David governor thank you very much for your remarks before we move forward operator we're getting a couple of comments that the volume is a bit low I'm not sure if it's possible to to turn that up if so please do so so with that I'm going to turn it over to Marc Hayward Marc you you probably have never been as popular as you and the SBA are right now but would love for you to talk a little bit about the PPP program emergency loans as well and answer a lot of the questions that I know we're coming in sure thank you very much David and governor it's always a pleasure to join you the Lieutenant Governor and all the commissioners in Connecticut I'm going to try to put this in four different areas and we're going to start with the PPP program and the eligibility and what people should be looking out for and I like to always begin by talking about what qualifies as payroll costs and I'm reading right from the interim final rule here payroll costs consist of compensation to employees whose principals place of residence as the United States and the form of salary wages Commission's or other similar compensation cash tips or the equivalents based upon the employee's record of past tests such as the absence of records a good-faith employer estimate is would be accepted in addition to that what you would so the the calculation would include all of wages and then you would add payments of vacation parentally family leave medical leave sick leave allowance for separation the payments for provisions of employee benefits including group health care coverage including insurance premiums retirement state and local taxes on compensation of the employees and you know another important area that seems that's not talked about enough is an for independent contractors and sole proprietors wages Commission's income or net earnings from self-employment or similar forms of compensation in addition to that I got some questions today as jito Walker you know the the split should be 7525 but before I go into that I want to give an example if your company has a payroll of 1.2 million dollars you divide it by 12 that's $100,000 a month and then you take that hundred thousand and you multiply it by two times two point five and that should be two hundred and fifty thousand that two hundred and fifty thousand should be used to bring back bring back your employees on to your payroll to pay your your employees and that would be the the point five which is the fifty thousand would be the point it would be to pay for your ongoing expenses of the business itself and those ongoing expenses can include or when mortgage interest not more not mortgage principal but mortgage interest utility payments other payments there are a lot of other things that can be included in the regular ordinary expenses of the business now I've also had a lot of today has been my day with a number of small businesses that are asking ok can I spend up to a hundred percent of what I'm getting under the PPP program to bring my employees back and the short answer to that is yes you have to spend a minimum of 75 percent of that particular loan on but in some individuals have opted to actually spend all of it and to incentivize their people to come back remember the small but and I said I know it's a usual concept to talk to small businesses and tell them you to bring their people back on to their payroll and they're still not going to work we understand that I talked to a restaurant tour earlier today that said to me I have great people and I want to incentivize them to come back on my payroll because I don't want my competition to steal my chefs and I thought that that was a very interesting way to think about he was going to give up his 25% so that he could provide that to their employees so that they would bring them back on board so and that's that's a critical element from from the from the business perspective because it's not it's an unusual circumstance to be bringing people back on the payroll when the business is technically not operating a couple of the questions that I was asked to address one is the money out the door I can tell you that a substantial number of loans have actually been approved in the state of Connecticut for hundreds of million I don't have the exact number yet because I'm preferring to stay out of the a trance system to allow our lenders in Connecticut continue to fund loans and when I go in there I'm knocking somebody else out I don't want to do that but I can tell you that the lenders across the state of Connecticut from community lenders to credit unions to medium-sized banks to larger banks everybody is in there and they are inputting information into the system and they continue to build that pile that eventually will be closed so a number of people said well how long will it take in yesterday's Treasury website on the FAQ so frequently asked questions it gave the lenders the authority to go forward and to use their own note to close the loans and up to ten days post the approval of that particular loan to actually close and disperse so I think there is a tremendous amount of progress that have been made on the issue of sole proprietors I think I addressed that in reading a page 10 of the interim final rule where it clearly says that 1099s is sole proprietors can file on their own a request for a PPP long there are I mean we get new guidance each and every day but I think the guidance has been extremely winging and we are trying to get as many small businesses into the queue as we possibly can on the other side of that a number of people have asked me about the economic injury disaster own and I have to commend the governor because you were the third state in the country that actually was approved for the disaster declaration for economic injury the economic entry disaster all is a little bit different because what it looks at is outgoing eight to twelve months from the working capital standpoint as to what the actual economic injury is to that particular business and the question is can people apply for both the answer is yes you cannot utilize are the funds for the same purposes so where you're using the funds are for paycheck of protection that's basically for your wages on the other side the economic injury disaster loans have to be used more or less for working capital moving out beyond that eight-week period I you know I David I could go on forever as you know but I'd like to stop there in allow others to talk as well and hopefully there'll be questions that I can answer mark thank you so much yet know that my guess is there's going to be significant amount of questions and for those that have been following the news there is a chance that the paycheck protection program will be increased in size to two hundred by two hundred fifty billion so we could talk more about that but just one comment for me before I pass it off to Commissioner Perez the Paycheck protection program and I realize we're not yet yet a full weekend and there's a lot of questions but that this is in my opinion the most important program for small business in Connecticut where you can pay your employees and manage your payroll in this very very difficult time so we'll talk more about it in the QA very important program we really would encourage anyone who hasn't applied to go out and apply as soon as possible and and we're hopeful that there will be an up size of this very important program with that I'm going to turn it over to a commissioner Jorge Perez who oversees banking and talk a little bit about some of the agreements he's reached with banks and other initiatives that he's working on to make it easier for businesses and individuals in the state of Connecticut Jorge good afternoon everybody and thank you for the opportunity to speak if you hear thunder it's because there's a big storm outside my window but it's not that anything else that is happening I want to talk about two particular initiative that we started with the direction of the governor one had to do with residential mortgages and you guys complicated because to most people with mortgages the mortgage right they don't understand the difference between a conventional mortgage and a government-backed mortgage or portfolio mortgage or an uncle for the Morgans but basically the relief you're going to receive similar but there was a little different depending if you have a federally back mortgage and that could be an FHA a be a fannie or freddie and even when in the federal government for a period about two weeks the rules were different but as of today basically people could get up to 180 days which is six months or deferment and at the end of that and there will be an analysis done and if there's a need for most 90% of the federal mortgages there will be a second 180 day 10% is not there yet I have a feeling there's a couple days they will catch up with everybody else and their ways would be the same there's been some confusion about that because one of the things that saw the people is at the end of the 60 to 80 9100 whatever the day's is pay minutes do well technically that's right but it's not the way that has been described to people whether and we're going to go back and try to instruct people or federally insured mortgages and know that even no payment let's do it that doesn't that mean that the consumer has to pay the whole 90 day the 180 days at once and we have to come await them when it's going to be came back and while options can be a mortgage modification that has that money to tell another mortgage so there's a lot of confusions about that the second initiative that we have worked on is what I call the small business large commercial mortgage initiative and we have a list of banks that sign up committed to the following things the opposite and there's a very small group of banks that have not and I spanked them all to eventually be part of that group if your small business customer or if you have a commercial mortgage you should contact you more at your back all the guys have agreed to work with people who were impacted by Cobra 19 who was not in distress maybe they were already a trouble loan and prior to go in 19 and there will work with you and it will include more variance meaning you don't have to make a payment for 30 days 60 days 90 days it depends if you're a restaurant and we keep you shut down for the less money day how does the eat 11 need to pay if you're not a business that isn't working you can tell it's been impacted but not the same level their solution be different and ask with the residential mortgages once we get a better feel when things going to go back to quote unquote normal they'll figure out way how that money would then be repaid back so that's taken something that took a lot of effort and it still has a lot of work to be done and try to convince it to a couple minutes so we can recover questions George thanks very much yeah we can get into much more of that in the question period but George works very very closely with all Connecticut banks as well as the federally regulated banks and our credit unions and making sure that we're all working together in this period so more to come and Q&A on that one with it I agree with that I want to say thank you because even the federal charter banks who did not have to work without stepped up and have been very cooperative absolutely with that I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Anna Mae's who runs the Department of Insurance Andy Thank You commissioner and thank you for the chance to be here thank you to the governor lieutenant governor for their leadership and to my fellow commissioners this is a difficult time for us all and I think we're all working overtime to make sure we get through not just the crisis but as the governor said the day after this is an issue I think that is bigger than just a state which is why I'm actually going to start with a high arrest it's one thing I found as I spoken to people is that not many small business owners are aware that the IRS is offering some hel
during this difficult time if you want go to our website by the way CT gov /c ID Pro Connecticut insurance department it will tell you you will see a whole website devoted to coronavirus which will give you an awful lot of information but I'm sharing with you today when it comes to the IRS if you've got a small to medium sized business I just want to make sure everyone knows there are some refundable payroll tax credits that will immediately and fully reimburse you if you've got somebody who's out sick because of coronavirus that's that IRS will cover up to 80 hours of paid sick leave the employers receive a hundred percent reimbursement health insurance costs have also covered alysha's what I'd like you to know and there's no payroll tax liability and if you're self-employed you receive an equivalent credit in addition by the way you can also get an additional tax credit based on the cost to maintain health insurance coverage for an eligible employee during a childcare leave period so if a childcare provider is unavailable due to coronavirus the IRS will credit you up to two-thirds of the employees regular pay and that's kept at 200 bucks a day up to $10,000 in the aggregate and up to ten weeks of qualifying leave can be counted towards a childcare credit now in the state as you've probably seen out of a Deborah's Direction we've done an awful lot to try to make sure nobody loses insurance insurance provides the security that we need now more than ever one of the first things we did was speak to the or health insurance friends so to try to make sure that there would be no cost to go and to get tested and that people would not have to worry about the cost if they were concerned that they may or may not have coronavirus then we move towards extending a base period so if you've been affected by cupboard 19 you are not going to have to worry about losing your insurance coverage while you're sitting there trying to recover for while the business is trying to recover recently in this was on April 4th last Wednesday we the governor issued an executive order which mandated that 60-day grace period for premium payments so for 60 days nobody can get canceled for a none payment and that can give you the reprieve that you need during this difficult time the good news is this does not apply just to health insurance it applies to any insurance regulated by the Connecticut insurance department if you have a concern you have an issue what you need to do is call your agent or broker or if you go direct to call the insurance company just tell them that you have a call that related issue and if you get any pushback call the insurance department or a number is eight six zero two ninety seven thirty nine hundred and we've got people there waiting to work for you on April 5th so that was just last Saturday the governor also issued another executive order and that's designed to reduce the cost of care for people who are uninsured so if unfortunately you don't have insurance you will know that you are not going to get some incredible cost some incredible bill coming down the road and if you are go to the governor's website you can see that executive order will help you but I have to tell you there is no reason right now not to have insurance if you can afford to pay for it there is you will not lose insurance if you already have it but if you had chosen not to get health insurance please go to access health Connecticut access health is offering a special open enrollment period so you does just like the regular open enrollment you don't have to say what you were doing before but until April 17th you're going to be able to get a very good health insurance through access oh and the last thing I wanna mention is that on April 6th which was this past Monday I called on insurers operating the state to reduce Auto premiums to reflect the fact as we all know that there are fewer people driving on the road so while we're all at home shelter in place the risk is reduced and I'm happy to say that it's only been a couple of days but a number of insurers have already done this I think yesterday or the day before for instance travelers announced that they will do that as well as allowing people who may be working for a restaurant may not have had commercial coverage to deliver food you know restaurants are going to be able to use those people now or you can use your own car if you own a restaurant and they will consider that coverage incidental not require you to get commercial coverage another way to help small businesses so we have a I think the Hartford is going to announce this and I know there are a number insurance companies are working on this and will be able to announce it soon there were a number of ways that we can make sure you get or keep insurance please take advantage of them back to your David Annie that was great and super informative really appreciate all the work that you guys have done on behalf of our businesses and residents here in town next up I'm going to turn it over to my partner at economic and Community Development Glenn Thames Glenn thank you David first and foremost I just want to give a huge shout out to mark Hayward and just thank you for the ongoing partnership that decd and SBA have I want to ensure all of our businesses on this call in the broader community that the state through economic and Community Development and a small business administration that we are in close partnership working hand-in-glove to ensure that we have a Connecticut Court needed strategy to ensure that our small businesses have access to the 350 billion dollars of funds dedicated to small businesses so I just want to reiterate that point in thanks mark for the ongoing partnerships that said we know that in order for our economy to rebound as quickly as possible and get to the the next day after this pandemic is that we need to get capital to our companies as quickly as possible and so one of the two things Dec data did immediately to help our small businesses with a short-term capital was we launched a kinetic recovery bridge loan program two weeks ago on March 25th exactly and within the first 36 hours we had over 4,000 applications and today we have over 5,000 applications so we quickly had to close off the spigot for the moment because again we were oversubscribed given we had started with 25 millions that we dedicated to this and have since increased that to 50 million and so we've had to rethink our process to ensure that we can efficiently quickly irresponsibly get this money out to small business small businesses if you will and so we're in the process of evaluating are currently heavy manual infrastructure if you will because again the ECD is not a bank and so we've had to really evaluate and pivot our strategy and so we're very close to partnering with a thin tech enabled lender that we are hoping to partner with so more on that to come but we will be communicating the next phase of the application process to the over 5,000 applicants and our pool on early next week so more on that to come and again our goal is to quickly and efficiently get this money out to those who have applied to date before the end of the month next the governor announced yes yesterday that in partnership with head Co which is a community economic financial institution that runs minority business initiative for the state we partnered with them for a new line of credit products that is specifically targeted to women and minority-owned businesses with less than 20 employees so these are for smaller businesses more of our mom-and-pop Main Street businesses that are experiencing significant cash flow needs due to a mandated shut down our enclosures if you will and so this product was really designed to help those companies and needs provide some much-needed cash flow so they can sustain their business operations through this pandemic and a part of those those expenses will be forgiven as part of a feature of that product if you will so you know again with that those are the two main updates and also casat ECD that i wanted to provide you with and where we're at now more to come because again we've looked at this process in three phases kind of a media action short term how do we slow slow the bleeding if you will ensure that businesses can survive and then really looking at beyond its endemic in the long term recovery that's going to be required on the raw and that's a common I know the governor and legislative leadership are on all going conversations relative to more relief that will be required and will be needed in the future if you will but that's what we're up to now this is our priority to get this money out to our small businesses by the end of the month for the Rakata connecticut recovery bridge mode and folks that are interested in the head co on that fall into those categories you can reach it through our site or the head code site and through our main coronavirus state site that David mentioned earlier in addition if there's any further questions that people have I just want to reiterate that we have a team of dedicated resources and team members as the ECD that are Hotline a part of our Tobin 19 emergency response unit and that number is eight six zero five zero zero two three three three eight six zero five zero zero two three three three I know we'll try to get to as many questions as possible but I encourage businesses if you have follow-up questions want to understand how to navigate all of this information that is coming before you because I know it can be hard to navigate it can be hard to absorb given all of the substances content I'm in real time that's coming these individuals are there to help you navigate that so thank you want to get into the question great Glen thank you very much with that I wanted to introduce Lieutenant Governor Susan bye so it's who is joined the call as well to make a few comments before we do the Q a lieutenant governor yes commissioner thank you so much David layman you have been doing Herculean work along with gwendolyn's aims to help our small businesses and the governor and I are very very grateful and Mark a word from the SBA thank you so much for everything that you're doing the governor and I hosted conversations with I think four of our five Congress people and you've been fabulous to help us with the ins and outs of the federal programs I actually have a couple of questions that I know I've gotten from a huge number of my constituents and so the first question is going to be from mark mark I've had this from dozens of constituents they applied for the program the protection program they got a case number then they got a notification that their documentation was lost and so they want to know what they can do about that what does that mean what do they what do they have to do I have a question for Gwendolyn same blendin our veterans included in the head co program that you mentioned along with women-owned and minority-owned businesses and I want to point out also that do any of the businesses who are listening who already have a small business Express program if you're part of a small business express loans that the state has some forgiveness or you can put payments off due to Kovac so know that that is a possibility and also and there's guidance by the way on the state of websites and I have a question for Andy Mays Andy Mays our insurance commissioner we know that there's been a drastic reduction and driving and I've read that some states are considering asking insurance companies to reduce their weights because people auto insurance rates because people are hardly using their cars or using them much less so those are my questions from from our constituents in Connecticut great thanks lieutenant governor so let's go around the horn here mark after you first so I pride myself and trying to stay out in front of things and lieutenant governor advice was I am I'm so pleased that I made a couple of phone calls this morning after I received an email essentially I think you're talking about one lender and I in discussions with that lender they had a glitch in their system when they went to batch they lost they didn't lose the the individuals names that applied and yes they do have a number but there was either an inability to upload documents or there were documents that didn't upload properly so my I was told this morning that would go out to a significant number of individuals in the state of Connecticut who was using that platform they were going to be asked to go back in through the email that they were being sent and to read upload those documents so I am aware of that they're not out of a system list still there can you tell me what lender that is please laughter well we can talk offline but I don't think that the constituents that I heard have been giving me different banks and also I talked to people who used the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce personnel to help them fill out applications and so I know they needed they'd use different banks the people it's not just one bank it's some smaller banks and that's why I was concerned because I know that it's different banks yeah I'll be happy to talk to you offline on that but I do know that there was a major bank that because what they're doing is they're collecting the information and for a batch system batching it up to SBA's in trance system so I'll be happy to talk to you about that and whatever we can resolve we certainly will do great mark thank you very much when do you want to take out the LG's question as it relates to other ballon programs of D City yeah sure so I think your question was relative to our veterans eligible for the new head coach minor credit product and the source of funding for the head co-run credit program is through public 16x public at sixteen - one to eight is that essentially stood up a minority business revolving loan fund and under that act under that fund minority refers to ethnic and racial groups and women it does not include veterans however with the Connecticut recovery bridge program we have had veterans who applied to that because I was a part of one of the questions that we asked on our initial application where you women-owned minority owner veteran um so we have a good sense of how many veterans are in that current application over 5,000 and so a part of you know our criteria for evaluating is ensuring that we have equitable distribution of these funds a month of targeted groups Gwen thank you and can you just speak to what opportunities there are to put off payments for any businesses who may have existing small business Express programs because I know you folks have done something on that and I think it's important for businesses to understand what the relief is absolutely so what about me the actions that we took words are essentially doing a three-month bill payment deferment or three months holiday if you will I'll see this co big pair demyx or about April May June portfolio so I think as many people know how BCD has been providing direct loans since about 2011 through that small business Express program we have over 800 active portfolio loans that are in that and so we extended that three months across the board the companies have any other loans with the ECD that were outside of the smothers Express program we are possible and accommodative so we're required relative to hardships great Glenn thanks so much and Andy do you want to touch on the auto insurance a bit more for them absolutely thank you thank you for the question lieutenant governor as I mentioned earlier the earlier this week we issued a notice to ensure to add to lower the personal Auto premiums to reflect the lowered amount of driving that people are doing during bus shelter at home chauffeur in place period and they haven't had much time to comply frankly it's three weeks or three days to share things but I am pleased to know to bet they are either of the insurance companies I've spoken to or either killing it and the processor of doing it or have already done it you know just outside our offices and Hartford for instance travelers announced a day or two ago that they were doing it and that they were also going to allow people to use their personal autos in the business so you want to
make a restaurant delivery for instance you'd be able to do that under your personal policy and not need to get a special commercial coverage that's what we're asking for today and I I don't think they have announced it yet though pardon me for jumping the gun but I know the hartford is coming out to announce it and I know there were another a whole bunch of other companies that have done that all stay Geico Liberty Mutual Safeco American family USAA as of this morning when I checked nine of the top ten insurers already put their program in place and if I can just go a little bit longer David because I had a question from somebody who asked are there eligibility requirements to get the auto insurance lowered how does it work no you don't have to do anything these companies will do it automatically and you should get a premium credit some companies may give you there are a couple of companies that are doing it by boarding a check but most companies will provide a premium credit and most companies are looking at least for now at April and May and we'll see where things go if you have a question about your particular company as I mentioned please call the insurance department eight six zero two nine seven 3,900 here to help thank you David thank you thank you so much I just wanted people to know that that was out there thank you lieutenant governor thank you Andy so with that we have about 10 10 or 15 minutes for questions so Marabella lose will you take it from here sure and I just want to remind everyone that there will be that the call the recording of this call will be distributed afterwards for those who can't join I'm going to try to synthesize a question here because I've gotten this over and over this is about sole proprietors and those who are self-employed there's sort of lots of questions and confusion around this there's they are aware that there are state programs there's federal programs and then there's unemployment but if they are sole proprietors should they apply for unemployment should they apply for PPP should they go to the States decd program and just getting one set of funding cancel out the other can you sort of like walk them through where they should go and make a recommendation sure it's David mark do you want to start as a relates to the federal programs I know you touch that the loan proceeds can't be the same but maybe a bit more in terms of how a sole proprietor when they can apply and how they should think about it yeah I mean they can apply now they're eligible right now in fact I was just I was just responding for somebody who who asked that question and it's it's on numerous pages through the interim final rule but on page 5 it's very it's very clear that I'm sorry page 6 is very clear that sole proprietors are eligible for the PPP program and it you know it talks about other forms of compensation in arm there is a discussion as to how do you calculate that and if you notice in all the documentation that's provided to the lender if certification and documentation coming from there from the side prop of the 1099 and and on the other side on the side of forgiveness again it's a reliance because of the safe harbor provisions and the whole harmless that those individuals are providing under penalty of perjury accurate information to the to the lender great and Glenn do you want to touch a bit on the D city in the state level programs how we're thinking about sole proprietorships yes so fighters are eligible as part of our initial kind of qualifiers for eligibility worth that you are registered with the state of Connecticut and had 100 or less employee so again I would encourage people to apply for all the program so it's an expense that you provide for a Connecticut recovery bridge program please apply because we designed our product in a way that in the event that you are applying for disaster loan and got those dollars you could essentially use those sba funds to check out our loan which was meant to be a short-term loan product so again separate and apply for all the available capital that's out there at this point my best suggestion general it's David I'll take the last part of that question commissioner Westby is not on this call but the Connecticut Department of Labor is working feverishly to set up a program for the pandemic unemployment assistance which is the federal program that is affording sole proprietors and self-employed folks to get unemployment benefits so more to come on that but they are working as fast as they can to work through their backlog and set up these new programs that are coming out as a to respond to the crisis okay great and the next one is about restaurants and lodging can they assume that the closure and the guidelines for restaurants and bars will extend past April 30th it's David I'll take this one at this point in time there's not been a determination on that obviously we're talking on a regular basis looking at the data from a public health perspective and taking decisions on those types of businesses as well as schools and others on the social distancing front so at this point in time it's too early to tell but we're monitoring it and as soon as we have new information on that front we will communicate it okay I'm getting another question here several questions on commercial landlords is there any is there any assistance available to landlords specifically since a lot of their tenants are having a hard time paying rent mark do you want to start there from the federal perspective and then we'll go to the state perspective it would only occur David if it depends on how depends on the corporation whether or not it was a proprietor or LLC then then the eligibility but it's not the last revenue we have number discussions about this and this is a very sticky area so I you know I don't want to apply on something that then I'm not really sure about so I'm gonna pass right now and say that I'll look it up and I'll get back to you okay sure so there's two things I'd mentioned from the state side that I think are worth going into one and I'll pass it over to Commissioner Perez here in a second but the the mortgage deal that was both residential and commercial that George negotiated with our banks and credit unions that does afford a grace period most likely but it does come down to the specific lender in the specific circumstance the other thing I just would call folks attention to is there there was property tax relief that the governor and the lieutenant governor put in an executive order last week where there are two plans that municipalities have the ability to offer to their their property tax payers and commercial landlords can benefit from that as well there is a requirement that they pass some of that benefit through to their tenants but those are the two main things from the state perspective that can provide relief to those landlords so George you want to talk about how a commercial landlord should think more about the the deal you brokered with banks and credit unions yes what the commercial and Bauer should do is contact the credit union which only few does commercial mortgages quagga bank and they will work with them obviously if a commercial if a bower has a restaurant that's a tenant and the resting we sat down that's going to impact their cash flow so the bank's understand that and the credit units understand that and they're willing to work with those powers on a case by case they're not going to do something to close the bar because I don't know all this is situations and if you had a problem with it I can these days it's dated before you go into court the Department of Banking and we will assist you in any way we can and our number is a six zero two four zero eight one seven zero okay eight six zero two four zero eight one seven zero great thank you George Maribel next question okay let's see if we can take this one again just the sole proprietors there are surfer fighters I have a personal checking account with their bank they may not have a w-2 a profit and loss is there any do they still qualify as a business or they provide is there any other eligibility documents that they can provide to qualify for the PPP mark I bet faded in and out so I only heard the very end of that question can you repeat it please I'm sorry I'm fine they're so proprietors right and they have but they have personal checking accounts with their bank they may not have w-2s or they don't wanna stop it in loss statement right but they're they're an LLC or a sole proprietor how what kind of documents can they provide for eligibility so I'm assuming that they had to file some kind of tax return if they took a draw or if they're in some way of taking income and if that's the case then they would use that as the evidence has to give the calculation okay I have a question on business interruption insurance businesses are being told that interruptions interruptions that are koban related shutdowns are not covered is there any plan to address this by the state so it before Andy jumps on this one anyway don't you I know you've answered this many many times but also as you do could you talk a little bit about how you after this crisis how you think the insurance industry and the federal government potentially are going to adopt a pandemic insurance type policy Thanks well I think what we need to recognize as I said earlier on as that dust goes beyond the ability of the state frankly of the insurance industry to manage and business interruption insurance is a perfect example of us what we need is a federal response to the issue because the losses are simply too great for any industry to cover at this point it's too much for the small businesses to cover it's too much for the insurance industry to cover at this point now business interruption as an insurance policy that was designed to cover physical damage to a business or in some cases damage to the supply chains these SARS epidemic pretty much every business insurance coverage policy has excluded communicable diseases like viruses and it will be there were number lawsuits that are out there we'll see what happens so it'll be interesting to see what the course aside but the courts have held generally that these are not covered what happened in Congress is that Tom or some people in Congress proposed a bill that was modeled on dirt modeled on tria Korea as a terrorism risk insurance that this would be the pandemic risk Insurance Act and what this would recognize is that only the federal government has a resources to provide a backstop of us insurance if the insurance industry it's required to cover it what is going to happen is that pretty soon insurance will either not be available or affordable purposes interruption and that's where we are right now I as a as a husband of a small business owner would reach out to Congress and say well let's do a job on this this is one of those things that we do need to be able to provide to businesses so they have certainty thanks David that's right and I think I think that one of the lessons here is this type of insurance is absolutely needed but similar to terrorism insurance I think the federal government is going to need to play a significant role as evidenced by the response so far now but I think we have time for one more question and then we're going to turn it over to governor Lamont to make a few closing comments okay so just the last question is can you give any can you give us a hint as to where you're going next in the business area are there any more moves plan on defining what's an essential business anymore workplace rules or any other systems program that we should expect down the road it's David I'll jump on this one so I as a we're communicating to the community into businesses and to all residents of the state as soon as soon as we can you know whether it's through executive order or guidelines or various rules so there's nothing that that's imminent that you haven't seen because as soon as we decide to do it we're putting it out and implementing it so that's happening real time and certainly we're watching the data and in the evolving crisis and how to best respond to it so we want to keep the lines of communication open and we want to make sure we're over communicating with the public at the government level so hopefully it'll be more to come on that as we have it in terms of initiatives and other programs you know as Glenn mentioned there were really three levels of response from the state's perspective you know what needs to be done immediately what needs to be done in terms of safety net and in conjunction with the federal government in the very significant response there and then the third prong is going to be the recovery prong and the governor mentioned at the outset we're starting to have conversations about that exit plan what does that look like how do we restart the economy so we are starting to spend real time on that and and our hope is that we get to spend more time on that and how do we restore late the economy to where we were in early February mid February because that's really really important so we will update this group as we go on that front and we're certainly having lots of conversations with legislative leadership about those ideas and we hope to be able to implement them as soon as practical thirty Seconds I'm so pop okay I'd be fine in the interim final rule it said as it relates to documentation necessary to establish eligibility it would be records payroll tax filings form ninety nine miscellaneous or income expenses from a sole proprietorship for borrowers that do not have such documentation the borrower must provide other supporting documentation such as bank records sufficient to demonstrate the qualifying payroll amount great mark thanks so much and listen I wanted before I turn it back to the governor thank everyone for list diving into this call and participating thank you everyone for Speaking that spent the time to do it and again our hope is to do more of these in the future as the situation evolves governor Lamont yes thank you David um I was taking notes that was very informative for me but brought philosophy the last question I heard was how many more consecutive order is essential business tightening and we've done something like 18 executive orders what I want you to know is what we're trying to do is just to find how we can make the workplace safer and and essential as often how much big social interaction there has to be and how we can make sure we limit that amount of social action going forward I hope winding that down I heard the question about hey April 30th do you think I can get my restaurant going again I can tell you that we had the schools closed until April 20th and I were glad to say that we're going to announce within a day or so that they will stay closed for at least another month May 20th and I would assume that you can see the same thing in terms of bars and restaurants and some of our other businesses but I think the general theme is all right when can I get back to work when can I get my business going again and how do I get from here to there I think with you know we are banking and insurance and market SBA and everything we're trying to do with the loan program to help you power through April May even June so we get closer to the back side of this thing everything we're trying to do at the state level and I really believe they're doing at the federal level is whether we can to keep their businesses intact I don't know whether this is going to be a v-shaped recovery as the president suggests or whether public health concerns will make the second half of this V a little more gradual as it gets back and we carefully bring people to work I'm little scared that if we go too fast and take too much risk you're liable to have a second hit on this virus which can just be tragic for everybody but I think you hear at least from the themes we're thinking about the next day what goes on around the bend so to speak and how we can start webbing our engines up with the priorities in terms of testing loans and keeping your businesses and jacks so thank you everybody this type of information is good for me and I hope it's helpful for you great Thank You governor
ith that that concludes our call
