Industry sign banking nevada business associate agreement later
now please welcome vegas chamber president co-vary betsy well thank you so much Carlos and thank you everybody for joining us today and please excuse our technical difficulties sometimes those things just happen but we're so excited to be here today because we have some great new information to share with you about some possible funding that that you can apply for so we'll be joined today by Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones and Director of Community and Economic Development it's Shawnie coleman they're going to give us an update on the creation of Cyril grant funds by Clark County to help our small businesses that have been of course been impacted by Coppa 19 Commissioner Johnson director Coleman are going to give us some information about things like the application process criteria to apply and then funding levels available to small businesses located throughout Clark County before I introduce our speakers I want to highlight just a couple of chamber programs for you a couple of things you're not going to want to miss out on applications for the Chamber's leadership Las Vegas program are open but they are due soon so you want to keep that in mind that's a ten month program that gives you a deeper understanding of Southern Nevada so that you can become a more insightful leader a community leader applications are due on June 11th so go to leadership Vegas to apply for those also mark your calendar because on Monday June 15th the biggest chamber is going to be hosting an interview with Wynn Resorts CEO matt mattox Matt's going to talk about the Wynn Resorts reopening social distancing within the resort and give us a first-hand behind-the-scenes glimpse into the inner workings of Wynn Resorts and what's happening there so they truly have been a leader in Southern Nevada and we appreciate that so we look forward to speaking with mr. Maddux on June 15th and now it is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome our two guests today Clark County Commissioner mr. Justin Jones and again Shanny Coleman director of community and economic development for Clark County as well thank you both for joining us today thank you so much Mary Beth really appreciate everything that the chamber has been doing throughout this Cove in nineteen health crisis to provide information not to just its members but to the entire public to all small business owners on how to address the be concerns the economic concerns and the health care concerns we appreciate all that you guys are doing you guys are truly a partner with the county and with our community to make sure that we we weather this storm as well as we can was can so we appreciate all the webinars that you have been doing to ensure that businesses have had access to federal funds PPP and other funds and we appreciate the opportunity to partner with you on additional funding through the cares Act so as you may know the cares Act allowed for monies to be distributed to certain jurisdictions of over 500,000 across the country and so Clark County was allotted two hundred ninety five million dollars in care Zac funds and one of the uses that the cares Act can be used by forests to support small businesses that were affected by to the Cova nineteen health crisis and so working with Sean me who will who will follow up here in a few minutes we were able to identify a need in our community and and devoted 21.5 million dollars of our cares act funds to addressing the needs of our small business community and these are in addition to some of the other programs that obviously how are being used to to help our small business owners working with with Shawnee and with the County Commission we were able identify three different types of programs to try and meet the needs of the community we've worked very closely in partnership with the chamber and with several the other business chambers in our community to make sure that we were doing it in a way that is beneficial to those that are most in need and so one of the the main criteria for these grants is that the business not have received other types of federal funds we know that there were many businesses that were able to take advantage of PPP and other funds quickly but many others who were not able to take advantage of the dollars in any way and so we want to make sure that we focused on those that were not able to take advantage of other types of federal programs and so in identifying the types of programming that we wanted to make available we identified as a small business stabilization grant and two other grant programs to make them available to those in the community for the stabilization grant Shana will go over some of the criteria that are involved in that program and the other two programs for rent assistance and for PPE and other types of things that that businesses can use within their property to adjust to the healthcare crisis are critical we are also working closely with other partners with the because program which provides grants to economically disadvantaged businesses and also with the Las Vegas global economic alliance and the and with our pro bono partners to make sure that our businesses have access to legal services and to the business information network that's been so crucial crucial through this entire process so with that I'm going to turn over some some time to Shani to give a little more detailed analysis of the three programs and some of the criteria that are involved wonderful Marybeth thank you so much for having me on to today's program as commissioner Jones mentioned we work very hard to put together programs that we felt would touch a good portion of Clark County situates out there based on things that we were hearing from the community and so as Commissioner Jones pointed out while some businesses were able to tap into some of the federal dollars through SBA directly know that there were a number of businesses that were not so these three programs are really designed for small businesses so the range or the cap on the employee size for all of these programs are twenty employees we do include sole proprietors so from one to twenty employees are eligible for the programs some of the programs have slightly different criteria based on what they do so the first one I'll start with is the small business stabilization grant this is the first one that's going to be rolled out applications will likely be available by the end of this week on the website and then we will have an application window probably be open for a week well we will accept applicable part honey will accept applications for the the program but this particular program provides working capital so it's it's the most flexible and the most generous of all of the programs that we have the size of the working capital is based on the employee count so businesses between one and four so that includes the sole proprietor or a home-based business businesses between one and four employees can get up to five thousand dollars and businesses between five and twenty employees can get up to twenty I mean up to ten thousand dollars twenty four years up to ten thousand dollars so again have twenty employees or less so proprietors and home-based businesses can participate in this program they must have an active business license so we'll be checking business license doesn't necessarily have to be a Clark County business license because businesses and jurisdictions such as Henderson and North Las Vegas may apply for this particular grant so they just need to have an active business license again we're trying to touch businesses that have not received anything any type of support fund so we're asking only for those that have not received federal dollars and not anticipate receiving money from the other jurisdictions so we want to avoid double dipping but you know some of the jurisdictions such as Henderson in North Las Vegas have established some of their own programs I'll be it much smarter a much smaller than the counties program but one avoid double dipping so if you are participating in city of Henderson's program then we ask that you not participate in these programs at the moment must be in business for at least six months so we're giving a lot of leeway there I know a lot of programs require at least a year or two years we only require that you've been in business for six months prior to March 15th and obviously that you've had a financial hardship you don't have any tax liens or anything like that and so this again is the most flexible this program will be released before the other two programs so we anticipate the application to be on Clark County's website by the end of this week and we will likely have an application acceptance period that starts sometime late mid to late next week and we'll leave that open for about a week we will gather all of the applications we want to support businesses that were viable and and had success before commence truck so one of the things that we'll be doing just to kind of objectively look at who gets funding and who doesn't there is a scoring criteria businesses can score between 0 and 30 points but basically it looks at things as how long the business has been operating how many employees they have whether they're their net revenues look like what type of debt do they have if they're a disadvantaged business and based on that scoring criteria those obviously in the top tier will be funded first we understand that those businesses are likely to have been successful and are likely to continue to succeed if they are provided with these grant dollars and so we want to support those businesses so once we received applications we will be reviewing all of the applications we will be scoring them applicants will see will receive an email letter regarding a notice of determination whether they'll receive the grants or whether whether there's a reason why they they weren't eligible for the grant and then we will be getting the money out so that's that's the first program here I'm happy to stop if there's any questions particularly about this grant or Mary Beth do you want me to roll through all three of them and then kind of take questions at the end just to clarify Shannon a couple of things this first one is called the business small business stabilization grant it's going to roll out the end of this week Korea and and so we've gotten the criteria from you that was very thorough so thank you and then the Clark County website is where people will be able to go to find information on all three of these correct if they go to Clark County in V gov at the top of the page they'll see a button that says econ dev if they click on that button that will take them specifically to the economic development page and there is a section on that page if they look on the left hand side menu that says economic recovery and so here they can find free public safety posters in English in Spanish so if they have a need to want to print out posters reminding people to wear a mass or wash their hands they can get that there as well as there will be information on the three grant programs on that page when we post the application and when it's time to submit the applications all of that will happen from that same page okay and then just last before I let you go to the next one's you said this the most flexible the easiest one to navigate and so forth I assume the requirements things that documents that people have to submit are also not terribly onerous but they certainly will give you what you need and what your crews and teams will need to do your scoring system absolutely um if you go to the website now there's actually a list it's not a complete list but if you go to the website now and you pull up the documents related to the grant you'll see a short list of documents that they'll need to apply for the grant so things like obviously the application form they'll need to provide us with the statement of how the funds are used a hardship statement all of these things are actually in the application there's a section for that but other documents that they may want to think about profit and loss or a balance sheet tax returns current debt schedule since we're limiting this to businesses 20 employees or less they'll need to include a payroll schedule so we can confirm the number of employees that they have on staff obviously we need some things to actually process the application so there is a w-9 form that they'll need to fill out so we can actually distribute funds to them copies of their active business license so we don't believe it's too onerous the application itself is only two pages long asked for basic contact information to provide a list of who the business owners are so and when the application is actually available it will provide a full list of all of the documents and all of the various steps that they'll need to follow to submit an application ok I'll just ask you one question here question and then we'll let you move on to the other two because I know you have a hard stop at 2 o'clock so I just want to be mindful of your time so when you were talking about the 20 employee cap is that full-time and part-time or just full-time it's full-time and part-time oh it's both ok excellent okay very good well let you get to the next two just to make sure we get the information out so the second program we have is the we call it the protective retrofit grant this is a reimbursement grant and this grant is really about protecting the public and public health and safety this grant will reimburse small businesses same thing 20 employees or less small businesses up to $5,000 for things like if they had to do a building modification say they had to install Plexiglas or say they wanted to install no-touch faucets or no-touch doors or if they want to buy thermometers for screening a one-time purchase of PPE if they need to buy PPE for the employees this particular grant will cover up to $5,000 of that the eligibility requirements are very similar 20 employees or less receive no federal or city money already have active business license this one requires a commercial location because it's about keeping the spread of a comb it down this is this particular grant can't be used by home-based businesses because we want to cover as many businesses as possible you only had to admit in business since March first for this particular grant and so we shortened that window from six months to March first so basically two weeks as long as you've been in business about two weeks before coded 19 happened you can't apply for this particular grant also have no state federal or county tax liens and so that's that particular grant and with that I'll I'll stop for a minute to see if there's any questions regarding that no not yet all right and then the final program that we have is a rental assistance program and this program was real about attempting to touch two industries at the same time and so recognizing that while small businesses need support as well that landlords are also some of them are small businesses and need support a lot of what happened when businesses were losing revenue they were in a situation where they had to they had to make a choice and sometimes rent was the the item that didn't get paid and what that does is that shifts the burden of financial responsibility from the business to the landlord because a landlord has financing or they have a mortgage that they have to pay then now they're struggling to so this particular grant covers both it will pay up to $10,000 in back rent the back rent is paid directly to the landlord this particular grant does require the landlord to participate since we're paying it directly to the landlord one of the things that we were cognizant of is that sometimes the the there may be a time where the $10,000 is a partial rent payment and so we wanted the landlord to acknowledge that they're receiving a partial rent payment and that they also wouldn't take any additional eviction actions against that tenant if it was a partial payment so the the tenant owes $25,000 in rent they participate in this program and we pay the landlord $10,000 we didn't want the landlord coming after the tenant for the $15,000 in evicting them the next week so this requires a landlord to sign an
agreement that says hey I'm accepting these funds I understand these funds may be partial payment but I also acknowledge with this acceptance that I will not take any eviction action against the tenant for 90 days and so we're giving a little bit of comfort there as well eligibility requirements are similar to the stabilization grant again 20 or less employees received no federal grant dollars or other City dollars obviously it needs to be a commercial location so no home-based businesses are eligible for this been in business for at least six months have a financial hardship not have any federal state or tax liens and so that's the final program that we have okay and Shanna you said that the first one the small business stabilization grant that's coming out this week what's the timing of two and three um two and three will likely come out two to three weeks after we want to go through the small business stabilization grant just to make sure like if there are any tweaks or things that we need to make adjustments for on the other two so we'll have a little bit of time to do that if we need to okay Commissioner Jones I have to commend you and the county for coming up with these three plans I think are these the brainchild of some of you at the county or maybe you looked at best practices like from Utah or places like that that that already had some pretty good ideas how did this come about I give under something the credit to Shawnee for being the brainchild of these programs she you and I worked early on as we were considering what types of options were there and she did the laboring or in identifying what would be most beneficial and we have jointly called the other chambers and business leaders to try and understand them but Shawnee deserves the the vast majority of the credit for putting these programs together so thank you Shawnee you know it's we were very fortunate the the county didn't have anyone doing economic development and so we were fortunate to bring Shawnee on a few months ago and the minute that the kovat 19 happened she pivoted to doing economic recovery work and we are so lucky that she was on board before this all started because frankly we wouldn't have anybody to do this work about for the fact that she had come on board a few months ago so we're grateful to have her I'd love to say that she has a large department that she's managing to do this but she is a department of one right now a tremendous work with with very few resources and grateful for all she's doing I did also want to mention in terms of other things we're doing to help these businesses are our fantastic licensing team business licensing team has worked again with Shaunie to support our our businesses to make sure that they have as much flexibility as possible I mentioned briefly that we're working with legal aid to make sure that our small business owners have the support as they're navigating these programs certainly the the tenant-landlord assistance is critical a lot of these leases are very complicated and we want to make sure the small business owners have that legal support so they can make sure that they're getting everything they can out of this and and staying in business for for years to come and then Shaunie's also worked very closely with the with UNLV and their program for assisting small businesses and those will be resources that are available to the businesses as they navigate through these programs I mean you deserve a lot of credit we didn't know that you have a career in economic development in your skill set oh yeah I've been doing that for years I worked at the city of Las Vegas for an economic development for 12 years before the county's told me so the county got lucky I definitely would agree with that just a couple of questions here or maybe before you go to clarify a lot of folks are asking if they already got a PPP loan that they cannot participate in any of these three programs and and might that change right now we're focusing on businesses that have not received any funding as we go through this process if they're if we go through the process and we are able to fund all the applications that we receive that did not receive that are part of that group that didn't receive any funding if there are any funds left we definitely could look at a second round that has some adjusted eligibility requirements and follow up on the the 295 million dollars that we received as the county we did an initial allocation of 21.5 million dollars for small business support and a lot of the dollars have to be used for things that are direct related to health issues testing services for our homeless population etc but if it turns out that there are additional dollars available then we can certainly make adjustments as we go forward as we see through the needs in our community that would be really helpful because a lot of our members are saying that they only got like for example $1,200 from the PPP and so that really isn't going anywhere for them so now they're not eligible to apply for these grants so it's tough they're in a rock and a hard place because they fight and got funds but not enough right okay what the one other piece of this that we haven't set the criteria on is the because piece we're working with the with the Latin Chamber the Asian Chamber and the urban Chamber on identifying what the criteria for that program will be and so that's something that we can certainly talk about whether there is an opportunity to be a little more flexible on on that and that's another $750,000 okay great can can folks apply for all three of these at the same time or do you have to apply for one at a time oh so that's an interesting question the small business stabilization grant that will be released first if you are awarded funding under the small business stabilization grant you will not be eligible for the rental or the retrofit grant because the small business stabilization grant is working capital and they can use that capital to do to take care of the same elements as the other two we limited that so for the retrofit reimbursement grant and the rental assistance those two can be applied for together you can receive funds under both of those but the stabilization grant is the only one if you receive funds under that then that would make you ineligible for the other two well and it looks like that there's the most the most dollars are included in the stabilization grant right you have the opportunity to get the most money with that one correct okay another question is if what if you are self-employed and did not pull a payroll and have no other employees can you still apply for the rental assistance grant we are a family-owned small business um the answer to that question is yes you just have to have a commercial location so you have to be paying rent to someone else so sole proprietors are eligible for that grant they just need to be paying rent to someone else okay the next question is and I'll just read this what about companies in the trade show industry we received so they did receive PPP funds but it is again not enough to bridge the gap until we can go back to work as of now all trade shows are canceled until September so we're focusing on those businesses that haven't received any type of funding right now right it just does a follow up there is we did appropriate most of the 21.5 million to programs but there still I'm actually end up leave in shawnee dollars that hasn't been appropriated yet we have about seven hundred thousand dollars left there is some so we may revisit as we see the programs roll out okay another question is what if the landlord doesn't want to participate and be paid directly by the county can I still apply and then pay the landlord and show you that the payment was made or proved that the payment was made the way the payment is designed though the way the program is designed it really requires the landlord to participate because part of what the tenant gets from the landlord's participation is that protection so right now it's designed for both the landlord and the tenant to participate okay got it can commercial landlords work with the county proactively to help their tenants seek rental assistance grants absolutely so this information was pushed out to organizations like May up um in other commercial real estate industry organizations so if they have tenants out there that are struggling if the landlord is willing to participate and the tenant is willing to participate we are willing to help okay and what were those deadlines again for the grants the first grant again the application should be available by the end of this week what we're looking at as far as an application acceptance period will be June 20 June 17th which is Wednesday through June 24 it may shift a day through the 18th and the 25th but there will be a week a window of a week where businesses can actually turn in their applications to the county for assistance okay and then on that note how long do you expect it might take to process the applications it's really going to depend on how many applications we get we're hoping to keep it down to about two weeks but if we get a large number of applications that we have to review and shift through then that can obviously extend the time a little bit okay great here's an another question um if a business has applied for PPP but has not received any confirmation from the SBA or other lenders that they have funds of proof from them yet are they eligible to apply for these funds so they're in there and they're embedded between time so we weren't asking people not to apply if they have received notification that they're going to receive funds and they just haven't received them yet um one of the things that the business will have to do as part of the application package is they'll have to sign a certification of funds and that just helps us understand and if the business does receive funds from a city or federal government if they're in that in-between time that they realized that they may need to pay the county back for those funds we really again want to support those businesses that have not received anything first okay gotcha what things would you recommend that businesses do with their applications and so forth to make their company look or to be more attractive as candidates to to help their chances of getting these funds I would just say be honest we try to make the application review process as objective as we can so we didn't have situations where I like this company or this companies my friends so I want to try to try and try to get them some help so it really is going to be based on that criteria where we're looking at how long the business has been open and operating what their debt is how many employees they have so as long as they completely fill out the application and they provide honest answers then their their vitality as a as a business before koban 19 will likely carry them through to a positive outcome on the grant side and just just one thing to note is we're probably going to get more applications than we're able to fill and so in terms of how to fairly identify those grantees we will likely end up in a situation where we have to go to a loter before one or more of these programs okay and then for those businesses as well Commissioner Jones mentioned it earlier one of the things that we've done to help small businesses to prepare their applications if they're struggling or they just need help understanding we have a partnership with the Small Business Development Center at UNLV and so as businesses look at the application or have questions about the application maybe they have a question about you know how to identify w-2 employees the Small Business Development Center they are going to have business counselors on hand to help walk businesses or some of the criteria but they will also be able to provide them with other resources that may be available either through the state or federally as well so I think the partnership with the Small Business Development Center at UNLV will be very beneficial and helpful and I encourage all small businesses if you know you feel uncomfortable because you never filled out a grant application before lean on the Small Business Development Center they will help you through this process Shanny you don't happen to have that number to you oh i don't off the top of my head it will be on the website so the website will include information directly related to Small Business Development Center there will be a link on the website where they can go directly to the small business development centers website and there will also be a phone number where they can call ok perfect with the information for legal aid and I believe they're standing up their portion of the website in the next few days also yes okay perfect and we'll make sure to get this information on the biggest Chamber website as well yes so will month-to-month tenants be eligible for that rental grant as long as the landlord participates and maybe that's when I may have skipped over that eligibility requirement so I apologize if I did that it requires that you have a lease that does not expire before December 31st so so month tomorrow yeah they have to have an active lease so a month-to-month would not qualify okay all right it's very good you know I just appreciate your time today you both have just been so accessible to biggest Chamber members Commissioner Jones Shani Coleman you guys are just amazing and you've given us so much and boy honey I'm so impressed with your ability to come up with these three programs to assist our members and just business in general and Nevada so thank you yeah I mean Commissioner Jones wants to give me the credit but a lot of this was research looking at what other cities were doing the small business Stabilization grant you'll see a lot of that around the country Seattle was doing something like that Long Beach is doing something like that Dallas is doing something like that so I really kind of tried to steal the best from what's going on and around the nation and and bring it to Clark County so well I think you've succeeded in that I did have one more question here that I want to get in if you don't mind just to clarify they say I have an LLC that I opened in November of 2019 and we are paying a rent subleased of a thousand dollars I do not have employees just 1099 contractors and I have not paid myself one dollar since opening the business can I get any help based on when my business was started they would have to have been in business six months prior to March 15th and so I think that takes them back I think he would need that business would have had to have opened in October so a business opening in November likely is not eligible darn mister for one month yeah I think they're still available for the other programs right Shawnee um the retrofit grant they're available for but the stabilization grant and the rental assistance they would not be available would not be eligible for I should say okay all right excellent well thank you again for all your help thank you for being so available to us and we sure appreciate all your work and all your service to the business community throughout the state Southern Nevada especially well thank you for having me I'm going to go ahead and jump off so I can jump on my other poll I apologize I have to run Shawnee thank you Commissioner Jones did you have any final remarks you'd like to make before we close today no I just want to reiterate the my gratitude to the chamber for really being a partner with our community here keeping businesses safe I know last week we picked up some of the inch that you guys had created for businesses in the southwest side of town so really appreciate you guys and all that you guys are doing and look forward to continuing the partnership well thank you so much we appreciate you and thank you to all of our members who are watching these webinars and learning about all the resources that are being made available so thank you again have a great rest of your day commissioner and we'll talk to you soon thank you okay bye everybody
