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hi good afternoon my name is Johanna Nelson and I am with the state of New Mexico's economic development department and thank you so much for joining us today you've tuned in to one of our Co vyd 19 response webinar series and today we are hosting a roundtable discussion with US Senator Tom Udall before we get started I'd like to address a few items this presentation will be recorded we will post this presentation on our YouTube channel I have included the link to nme Dedes youtube channel in the chat box you can access that or we will be sending this link out to all registrants email so you will receive the link in your email this afternoon as well when you registered we compiled all questions that were submitted and we have given that list to the senator's office as well as our cabinet secretary I would like to introduce the Mexico economic development department cabinet secretary Alicia Keys thank you and thanks for hosting this Johanna welcome to what I think is our 10th webinar hosted by the economic development department since the governor's declaration of the kovat 19 health emergency in doing these webinars we're really trying to bring New Mexico companies experts from state and federal agencies the business community as well as financial industry in order to help you through this crisis today we are honored to have US Senator Tom Udall the senator serves on five Senate committees appropriations Foreign Relations commerce Indian Affairs and rules at administration he has worked on New Mexico's behalf since 1998 the senator heard about our webinars and had his staff reach out to ask if he could participate and this kind of collaboration and openness is really what makes New Mexico so wonderful his staff is ready to work together and find solutions for economic development so senator we can't thank you enough for joining us today well it's a pleasure secretary Keith real pleasure to join you thank you so as many people listening know the three hundred and forty nine billion dollars appropriated by Congress to the PPP program has already been allocated with thousands of businesses in New Mexico in line to receive a portion of that money there were some that were successful and there were some that were not so what is next and we've been hearing rumblings about another 450 billion so the senator is going to address that today and talk about some general issues at first and then we'll get to the questions a bit of housekeeping like Joanna said ago nm job is is where we will be putting this recording afterwards that's also where we have information about our coming webinars we update it daily with all of the new federal programs state programs any grants we might hear about we also have our kovat 19 guarantee program we've done we've done that deal with about 35 companies so if you did not get the SBA funding come and talk to us about that we also have the leta 0% loan which we've done with I think about 20 companies right now so please look at our website and contact your regional representative the governor has also done a fantastic site it's New Mexico gov it has all the health information and current and accurate information on kovat 19 so we would like to thank Joanna for doing this and also the Senators staff i'm jeff lopez matt miller cara Gilberts it's really is this amazing group of people to work with and I'm so proud to be involved you know in New Mexico with with the federal delegation and all of the other cabinet secretaries and our teams so right now we're gonna let the senator speak a little bit about the overview of crafting the Kara's legislation and what went into that senator okay thank you so much in hello to everyone and I really appreciate secretary Keyes your involvement in this and trying to keep the business community informed here in New Mexico and I'd like to commend you and the governor for working so hard to meet the tremendous economic challenges brought about by this crisis before we start I'd like to extend my thoughts and prayers to everyone impacted by this virus it's hit very hard my focus in the Senate has been on New Mexico workers small businesses vulnerable populations and making sure our health care system and frontline health care workers have the resources they need to do their jobs and stay safe themselves that's where I continue to keep my focus I know folks are worried not just about their own health but about their ability to stay financially afloat so I'm here to talk about what we've done in Congress so far to help and the work ahead let's let's get to your overview that you were asking about Madam Secretary the cares Act is a two trillion dollar relief package the largest ever passed by Congress and just to give you a little comparison in the financial meltdown and housing and all of that in 2008-2009 the package passed by the Congress there was less than one trillion so this is significantly more than double what was done then so I think that you can see the size of the impact of the coronavirus I've worked hard to make sure this was a bill that put our state workers and small businesses first it's not the end of our work but it's a good start it's a big complex bill but very broadly it includes badly needed assistance for individuals for hospitals for state and local governments and for tribes and and critically the cares Act provides major relief for small businesses which is what you all would like to hear about small businesses as you all know very well power New Mexico's economy our state's more than a hundred and fifty-four thousand small businesses represent ninety nine percent of all businesses in the state and employ about three hundred and thirty five thousand workers our goal was to put small business first payment protection program is a centerpiece of the app it's a three hundred and fifty billion dollar program that provides small business loans of up to ten million dollars if a business keeps its employees until the end of this year its loan is forgiven businesses and nonprofits with less than five hundred employees are eligible the Small Business Administration its ministers to program and local banks when the font loans are on a first-come first-served basis as of last week all funds have been committed while all funds are obligated all funds are not out the door and into the hands of businesses that need them the administration's rollout and management of the PPP has had its difficulties my office only got information on New Mexico loans for the first time last week in total 8277 loans for New Mexico small businesses were approved for a total of over 1.4 billion dollars this puts New Mexico on track to receive a decent share of funding but we don't have enough information about these loans the entire New Mexico congressional delegation has been asking secretary secretary minuchin and the SBA administrator how many New Mexico loans have been disbursed their geographic distribution and whether businesses owned by underserved communities have equal access there's no doubt Congress must resupply this fund and do it fast but we also need to fix the issues that are plaguing it to make sure New Mexico businesses get their fair share we must make sure a portion of the new funding goes through mission based community lenders to underserved businesses that traditionally don't have easy access to capital a second piece of the small business package is a 10 billion dollar expansion of Idol the idol program economic injury disaster program this program provides emergency grants of up to $10,000 for small business and nonprofits to be dispersed within three days of applying Idol was supposed to act as the backstop for small businesses before the payment protection program loans came through but many small New Mexico businesses have been waiting for weeks for those loans I've been direct contact with New Mexico's SBA director John Garcia about these problems the the New Mexico SBA office is working hard but they are very understaffed to get this program up rolling and money out the door long long story short this bill has a lot of good resources for small businesses but the administration needs to do better getting these resources out the door and I'm pushing hard on that so back to you secretary Keyes Thank You senator and we're gonna get back to what's next and some additional funding that might be coming because a lot of our colors did submit have not heard or did hear and got rejected so we in a few minutes we'll get to you those questions real quickly we wanted to ask about your for an overview with regards to the money that is flowing to federal agencies and the cares act like HUD or the USDA how will that what does that look like for New Mexico how will that flow to New Mexicans okay getting getting over two trillion dollars out the door and into the field will be a first but New Mexico communities and communities across the nation need to relief now not weeks from now each federal agency has its own mechanisms and formulas for disbursement and it's very complex but we are keeping a close watch on the implementation and that push federal agencies hard for expeditious and fair distribution of funds New Mexico has already begun to see an influx of much-needed kovat 19 relief funding and we were all monitoring monitoring our state's allocations very closely back to you Adam secretary thank you um so the next question we have is about the Main Street program funding this can be misleading for some New Mexicans because we have this really fabulous program called Main Street but it sounds like this program is more for mid-sized businesses can you provide any insight on that you build and you're absolutely right the Federal Reserve's Main Street lending program is for small and medium-sized businesses below 10,000 employees and that includes businesses below 500 employees this is also a monetary program created by the Fed and intended to support small and medium sized businesses that were in good financial standing before the crisis by offering a four-year four-year loans of 1 million or more the Fed is still working out details but interest rates will likely be 2.5 to 4 percent like the PPP this program is delivered through the banks and other lenders it's not to be confused as you said Madam Secretary with the New Mexico Main Street your agency's program that helps revitalize downtown okay wonderful so we will work with your office as soon as any information comes up on the Main Street program funding we will put that on the economic development website so people can start accessing those funds in terms of federal money for communities not necessarily specific businesses but communities senator what does the cares legislation include okay despite some of the problems with the rollout New Mexico is currently seen money on the ground I'll give you a few examples approximately 1800 New Mexico healthcare providers will receive about a hundred and seventy million dollars to help stabilize and system sustain their operations that money is already being electronically deposited into provider accounts and separately over fifteen million dollars has gone out to sixteen community health centers web low health centers and urban Indian organizations throughout the state these frontline healthcare centers provide essential primary care services to underserved populations the state will be receiving over twenty five million dollars in grants for 50 local airports to maintain critical operations and Link supply chains and New Mexico state government and local governments are set to receive over 133 million dollars in emergency transit grants while New Mexico tribes will get almost six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for public transportation systems adequate public transportation means essential workers can get to their jobs and strength and transportation systems will serve us beyond this crisis back to you thank you that's fascinating and Joanna and I just before this we're emailing back and forth about future webinars we might do and we talked about doing one for tribal communities so we'll follow up with you on that and also one in Spanish because we knew we know that a lot of our a lot of our listeners are also Spanish speakers so look for those coming up in the near future so this is the project and that's all code that's also very important for our underserved communities obviously so please go ahead yes so everybody is very interested in what is next we have heard rumors of four hundred and fifty billion dollars will that go back into the PPP program will smaller businesses potentially be better can can they access that more easily what is phase four and phase five is there any infrastructure in there what are you seeing to be Congress has work is far from done congressional Democrats are pushing for a Care Act - I'm calling for a coal bed 19 heroes fund in the next package that would give essential and frontline workers a $25,000 premium pay increase equivalent to a raise of $13 per hour from the start of the public health emergency until December 31st 2020 it is also critical that we protect America's right to vote in the next package we need to make it easier and safer for everyone to vote but before that we want an interim emergency relief package small businesses are the top priority we want to see 250 billion dollars for them including one hundred and twenty five billion channel through community based lenders that serve women minority and veteran owned small businesses farmers and small businesses and nonprofits across the country and we want to immediately infuse 100 billion more doll into our healthcare system 150 billion to state and local governments and significant monies for food security families must have food on the table it this is a public health crisis which is unprecedented priority number one for me is to make sure New Mexicans stay healthy and weather this storm financially there are hundreds of stories throughout our state of New Mexicans pulling together working together I believe we can get through this crisis and come out stronger on the other end thank you so when do you I'm hearing rumors that there might be a vote on Wednesday do you know anything more yes yes the the discussion right now if any of you go out and search and start talking about the next package if you search on the internet you will find that they do from all of my I'm telling you where we are right now things can change but but we're very close to a deal which will mean that we'll be finalized in writing and may be voted on tomorrow it could be voted on by the end of the week it hasn't quite reached that point yet but it looks like this deal the outline of it and these aren't solid numbers because we don't know till we pin that down but we're talking about 310 billion in PPP 50 billion more into the idle program that economic impact impact the impact loans another 75 billion for hospitals and 25 billion to increase testing capacity so the priorities I mentioned before you ask this last question here we're still pushing for those and the expectation is as you can see if you are comparing the two state and local government are not in this package that they're talking about right now still pushing to get them in there and and there could be a change near the end that allows that to happen but that's the outline right now from my visitation with the leaders with the key leaders on the committee's that that have jurisdiction over this and so that's where we are right now which we that will be very encouraging if we could get a package out of the Senate this week get it out of the house by the end of the week and up there with the president signing it and then once again and start getting those monies out the door great that's nice to hear let's move on to a few of our listeners questions here's one what assistance will be available for small municipalities yeah let let me start with what's been done already the cares Act included a hundred and fifty billion dollars for the coronavirus Relief Fund to assist state and local governments Democrats fought hard to increase this amount we agreed to a compromise that funds would have to be used for the response to the coronavirus some of the one hundred and
wenty five billion dollars available to New Mexico will go directly from the Treasury to local governments with more than five hundred thousand population which in New Mexico as most people know is just Bernalillo County in the City of Albuquerque the rest of the money will first go to the state and then to smaller municipalities now I'll talk about what we're trying to do Senate Democrats have been fighting to increase support for local governments as part of a potential agreement to increase funding for PPP and that's what I just discussed in the in the last answer first our plan would provide an additional 150 billion dollars and a portion of the new funding would be delivered directly to yo local municipalities they on a pre-existing formula the community development brought block grant formula in this particular case our plan would also allow the initial 150 billion appropriated and the cares Act to be used to replace municipalities lost revenue now as everybody knows we being a oil and gas state we have strong exploration we have strong production a lot of our revenue at the state level and some at the local level is is in oil and gas and our state budget over the years you know has currently about twenty to thirty thirty forty percent is is oil and gas in the past historically you go back a little bit fifty percent of the state revenue was from oil and gas so what we're seeing today with the the crash and the price of oil and going into the negative sector is there is a real stunning shock to the system and so that's why we're arguing that these these local governments and state government which are going to be deprived of revenue because of this crash in the price of oil should be given assistance to help with the deficits as you've probably heard the governor is talking at some point I think this summer of bringing back the New Mexico legislature in order to deal with the deficits so and I think that's been estimated in the range of 1.5 billion dollars out of a state budget which is roughly seven billion dollars so you can see there's some big changes going on in New Mexico and and we're doing everything we can to try to get federal resources to help that these resources I'm talking about if they don't get in this package they'll probably be in the next package which I imagine would be sometime in the month of May okay great we have our next question which is close to my heart this woman is a self-employed jewelry artist and her income has been severely impacted the galleries are closed any relief availa available for artists wait and this is really talking about the creative economy in New Mexico which is one in ten jobs either direct or indirect with more artists per capita than any other state New Mexico is home to one of the most vibrant arts communities in the nation and our artists play a key role in shaping our culture attracting tourists and creating jobs in our response to Coba 19 we need to ensure that artistic entrepreneurs of the support they need to expand our creative economy and create jobs as the lead Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee over arts funding I successfully fought for a hundred and fifty million dollar increase for the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities that will help New Mexico artists which in turn will help our economy there is a misconception that the arts aren't related to economic growth but in New Mexico that couldn't be further from the truth also as you know many artists and creative professionals are not typical employees many are self-employed that's why we fought to expand unemployment assistance to include self-employed workers and why we made PPP available to sole proprietors back to you madam secretary thank you and just so people know I believe that that will be I emailed secretary bill McKinley this morning from workforce just to check on that and I think that they will have the website up and running by later this week I know that he's had a lot of difficulty with that website and just the amount of traffic on it so please we will post on social media and also on our website when that is available and you know in terms of diversifying the economy that is one of our that is one of our big pushes at the economic development department and we are seeing I know at least in the film and television sector and the senator and I were speaking about this before that's probably going to be one of the sectors that bounces back the quickest primarily because it's a lot of money from out of state that's going to be flowing in in addition to we're seeing a lot of companies that don't necessarily want to be in Los Angeles or New York anymore and are for the first time looking at New Mexico so I would say everybody keep your eyes on that in terms of okay let's see our third question so what more can be done to help small singer single proprietors and businesses with under five to ten employees senator IgE I already mentioned the enhanced unemployment and the PPP unfortunately sole proprietors were only allowed to apply for PPP a full week after other small businesses and as the funding was largely first-come first-served that man many of New Mexico's smaller businesses and sole proprietors lost out in this first round so what kind of Democrats are fighting to do is set aside a portion of the additional funds for small community-based lenders New Mexico small banks and credit unions and our CDFIs and minority depository institutions Certified Development Corporation's and micro lenders these are our lenders that know New Mexico the best and serve some of our smallest businesses that are arguably the most at risk in this economic crisis and we actually senator have been keeping a list on our website of some of the lenders that are being the most active with with our New Mexico businesses so for any businesses out there that haven't been able to match up with a lender please check out our website call or email Joanna she can help you out with that our fourth question is and this might be more of a banking question more of a small business question when will specific guidance be provided for how to determine the forgiveness under PPP good question right paycheck protection program PPP loans are loans in name but they can be 100% forgiven if certain conditions are met Congress's intent was to encourage businesses to keep workers on the payroll so if a payroll is close to what it was at the beginning of the crisis the loans would be forgiven and effectively converted into Gramm the details are important here and I've urged the SBA and the Treasury Department to release details as soon as possible on what will be required for loans to be forgiven but we know the broad the broad statement in the law which is that if you maintain the same number of workers 90 percent or more that it will turn into a grant from a loan okay good to know we are getting quite a few questions about food and security and food banks I would just urge everyone to go to New Mexico gov there is assistance there also if you want to reach out to anyone from the economic development department or our hot liners who are answering we have five people who are dedicated to answering our hotline each day reach out to those people and they will give you links in order to for food banks around New Mexico and Madam Secretary before you go to the next question as you know many of those food banks are part of the federal commodities program so one of the things that happens at the federal level through the Department of Agriculture is to give actual commodities that are designated in the law over to the food banks and I've been to several food banks where I've seen that program working in a kind of supplements everything that are that people in our communities are doing for example on food banks you will see local businesses grocery stores others get donate to food banks you have people donating money to food things so the food banks get it from different sources so there's also some federal import their pleas yes thank you for that um okay our next question is why are all the big businesses getting all the financial help and the small businesses are not getting funding or low-interest loans it every stimulus we enact needs to be focused on the workers and the most vulnerable folks who will be hit the hardest we cannot prioritize relief for big corporations most of the benefits need to go directly to workers who are the most at risk economic relief should be focused on keeping workers and their families in their homes with enough support to meet their daily needs any economic relief should flow to workers and their families not CEOs and shareholders and that is how we successfully fought to increase support for small businesses unemployed workers and our and our federal nutrition housing and health programs which are really our safety net and that will help those most in need and is course as I've said and is clear looking at this situation we need to do more and that's why we have this package hopefully we'll pass this week and we'll get to work and probably do another one in May thank you okay great I just had to meet myself there for a second we're moving on to our next question which is on individual stimulus will there be another individual stimulus for 2 to 3 payments to ensure we can make it until tourism returns a very very good question the the individual payments from the cares Act are just the beginning to go out that's the $1,200 per adult and $500 per child that phase out for higher income families it's a one-time payment to nearly everyone in the United States before the cares Act I supported a proposal from Senator Bennet of Colorado that would have provided 2000 in that initial payment then a $1,500 payment for the public health emergency if it continues into July and another thousand every three months if the economy continues to struggle and I support getting money into the hands of families that needed and best understand their family needs we should absolutely look at additional relief measures but I just want to underscore that the individual payments are not only this are not the only support offered by the cares Act and understand I think what what Congress is doing in these additional packages is is trying to monitor what is going on I've already heard of some people in New Mexico and some people across the country getting their $1200 payments so those are going out and it started it up a little late that I think they're going to start rolling now with that that's good news for everyone I will have to say the tenor of the phone calls that we've been getting through the economic development department has definitely changed over the last week and there is a lot of desperation out there especially for people who didn't or who haven't heard back on PPP or idle and so kind of on that question and I don't know maybe one of your staffers could also help because I don't know the answer to this but we are having a lot of questions which are how do I check on my status of Idol if I didn't get it the first time do I apply again do I just stay tight with you know the lender that I have already do you or maybe Jeff have any have you had any conversations with the SBA for guidance on what companies should do that have applied that didn't get it do they apply again how does that work sure you bet well first of all in a general way and then I'm going to call on Jeff because I think he has some updated information here I think it's it's important that the work you've done already in terms of putting in your application making contact many small business people have a bank they already deal through with these lending situations so it's important they stay in touch with the bank and see so so here's the kind of rough timetable you know that we may have a deal this week keep an eye on that when the deal is consumed and passed the Senate in the house and the president signs it it's at that point that the money gets into the federal government executive branch and gets pushed out to banks and then when the banks get it that's when they open up so that's kind of the rough timeline to see and to monitor and and I've had the same question asked to to me a number of times with calls of saying we want to know when the banks open up and so Jeff I'm going to turn to you for additional information there because as we talked before this I think you know a few extra things there Thank You senator and what you said is exactly correct when it comes to the Paycheck protection program businesses should keep in close contact their lenders about the status of that loan when it comes to the idle the emergency disaster loan program those directly to the SBA I know that SBA New Mexico is working hard to make sure that those loans go out when they're available my understanding is that the idle program also exhausted their funds around the same time as the PPP but as a senator mentioned the legislation being debated this week will also include increased funding for idle so reach out to SBA on the status of your idle funds also the Small Business Development Center network in New Mexico is a great resource to help get answers and the Senators office and myself and his staff are ready to assist whenever a constituent has an issue with the federal program or a federal agency you can contact us at Tom Udall dot senate.gov and we can help answer your questions and make sure you get responses from federal programs great thanks for that Jeff and as Jeff said the SBDC is a fantastic resource they have 19 offices around the state they are there answering phones in person they also have seminars that they do I think twice a week so if you haven't applied go ahead and apply go ahead and reach out to them for assistance in that because we know that sometimes applying for these programs is confusing so they are really there to help you I'd also like to just remind everyone that we put our hotline number in the chat box so please reach out to us if you need any help whatsoever we have people there answering the phone to try to get you to the right place or try to give get you an answer right away senator we cannot thank you enough as my dogs can test by dogs first start to bark we're really good the whole webinar until now is there anything else you wanted to before we sign off well - just let me thank you and and thank all of the business people in New Mexico small business people in New Mexico we we really know and understand what an important role you play it's it's those paychecks from businesses to keep people going that support their families that allow them to do all the productive things that they do in their lives and so we really appreciate all of your hard work and your your forbearance and understanding here in these difficult times and and my office is open to hear comments we we can the reason I think it's good to do several of these legislative packages at the national level is we need to get feedback on how it's working because if it isn't working in a circumstance and we learn that from New Mexico business folks we're going to go back and say you know this isn't working let's change it let's try something else let's do this a little bit differently and I think having a package come up hopefully this week and get it done and another one coming up in May we'll be able to make those self corrections so thank you very much and thank you secretary keys and Joanna thank you for everything you've done to help us out with getting out the word on these things well we will continue to collaborate with your office and I just had a text from one of the SBA directors in DC who was listening and he heard some of our concerns so once again an amazing these times are amazing in the sense that we are so far apart but we are also just so connected so thank you again and we will get all of the information out as it rolls out and work with your office to get New Mexicans you know the financial assistance that they need so thank you for making the time thank you you take care you too say bye-bye you you
