(Seguin) — The Seguin City Council wants to help more small businesses get back on their feet.
The council on Tuesday approved a staff initiative called the Seguin Strong Stimulus Program (SSSP). The program calls for the city to set aside a quarter of a million dollars that will be used to make grants to qualified small businesses inside the Seguin city limits.
Economic Development Director Josh Schneuker says the idea is to provide a cash grant to businesses that have struggled during this pandemic.
“Tonight, we are requesting $250,000 in funding to help establish the Seguin Strong Stimulus Program. This will allow for us to create an emergency small business grant program where we can assist some of those businesses that have been adversely impacted through this time and specifically focusing on those businesses that were deemed non-essential and that really took the biggest hit during this time,” said Schneuker.
Main Street Director Kyle Kramm says that he and Schnueker worked together to help come up with the plan. Kramm shared some data with the council that provided a snapshot of how the pandemic was hurting businesses in the downtown area. Kramm says, while the Seguin Strong Stimulus isn’t just about downtown businesses — the data clearly showed how hard business owners have been hurt by this situation.
“Pretty much all businesses have seen a reduction in revenue. Some have told me from 25 and some up to 80 to 90 percent and that was just for the month of March. April I imagine is even lower as that is the first full month that restaurants and bars have been closed and hair stylists have been closed as well,” said Kramm.
Schneuker says the city’s stimulus plan will focus on helping those businesses that have suffered the most during this pandemic.
“We are focusing on those non-essential industries most severely impacted through this and that is going to include retail, food and beverage, personal care — that will be barbershops, nail salons, spas etc., health and wellness and entertainment venues and these businesses can not have more than 75 full-time employees. Ineligible businesses will include national chains (and) regional chains that do not have more than five establishments within the state of Texas. We are looking at excluding financial institutions, RV parks, apartment complexes and home based businesses as well. So again, that focus is going to be mostly on those industries that have a lot of interfacing action with customers, a lot of that type of interaction,” said Schneuker.
There’s only $250,000 available through this program, and Schneuker says they will not be funding big businesses or those that are based elsewhere. He says they want to help the small businesses, which really are the backbone to the local economy. Schneuker says they’ve created a matrix that will be used when scoring the submitted applications. He says applications will be graded on a first-come, first-served basis, and he says they will be looking for businesses that can really detail how the money can help them during this recovery process. He further laid out some of the criteria for the program.
“They must have a physical location within the city of Seguin. We are excluding home based businesses, must be a city of Seguin utility customer, have experienced decline in either revenue or had to furlough or lay folks off during this time as well, being able to provide us with supplemental documentation to really prove that up. I’m really encouraging applicants, the more background information that you can provide, the better your application will be in that review time as well. We are acquiring that the business are in good standing with the city of Seguin, that they are registered with the Texas Comptroller’s Office and of course, engaged in legal activities per city and state law,” said Schneuker.
The council specifically wanted to know about places like hair salons, where chairs are often rented by stylists who are independent contractors. How the salon owner would use the money to help those stylists would be something that would have to be included in any successful application.
Councilwoman Jet Crabb says it’s important that each application is carefully scrutinized, so that the city can help as many of these people as they can.
“Every situation is really going to have be evaluated on its own because it is something we haven’t faced this before so I do hope that a lot the businesses that apply, they’ll be given every consideration and be sure that the people that are a part of contributing to that business whether it’s an employee or a tenant like a beauty salon or whatever that they are involved in this process too because that is the life blood of the business,” said Crabb.
The Seguin Strong Stimulus Program is now officially open, and the maximum grant awarded will be $5,000. Applications must be submitted by Wednesday, May 13, 2020 in order to be considered. Complete guidelines and online applications will be available on the city of Seguin economic development website, info.seguinedc.com/sssp.
Seguin approves Seguin Strong Stimulus Program
