2020.08.05 EDC Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Small Business Emergency Assistance Program Economic Development Commission; 8-5-20 Page 5 GENERAL OUTLINE OF POTENTIAL LOCAL PROGRAMS  First and foremost, the ultimate decision on whether to establish a local business assistance program and to what extent the program would be funded, are both decisions to be made by the City Council. For the purposes of our discussion on August 5th, the City Manager has directed us to assume a program will be desired, and the funding amount for discussion should be $250,000.  As indicated in our email to commissioners on July 31st, staff has been actively working to establish partnerships with Open To Business (OTB), Community Action Partnership (CAP), and the Community Support Center (CSC) to assist us with administering these grants should local programs be desired by Council. o Open To Business is already administering similar grants on behalf of Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, so they already have existing infrastructure in place to quickly assist us with our local program. • Open to Business utilizes an online tool called Submittable to take in applications and all necessary documentation. Applications will be reviewed against CRF federal requirements first, and then against the City criteria we must establish depending on how we want the money to be distributed locally. Closing documents will be handled via DocuSign, OTB will oversee distribution of the awards, and compliance documentation is generated via Submittable. • A single application process will get all information and supporting documentation from applicants. The application process includes questions that cascade depending on responses, so OTB ensures we get all needed documentation depending on the fact-specific case of each business. • The ideal screening process would be similar to the process being used by the County whereby applications would fall into specific priority bins depending on the criteria we set. Applications meeting all of our criteria and guidance would be labeled Priority 1 and be funded immediately. Applications meeting a paired-back second set of criteria might be ranked Priority 2, and would only be funded AFTER all applications in the Priority 1 bin were funded, followed by Priorities 3 and 4. This would ensure our highest priority businesses based on criteria are funded first, but priority businesses 2, 3, and 4 would also be funded provided there is still money in the program. This also ensures our businesses only need to apply once for all funding rounds. • All grant recipients would be required to provide additional documentation by OTB as may be needed to fully support the award amount.  City staff has been in contact with a number of other communities who have established or are in the process of creating similar emergency business assistance including (primarily) Roseville and Shoreview. The program parameters on the next page are based in part on the guidelines that those cities have established, and are intended to provide us with a starting point for discussion.