Chelan and Douglas County See 800 Small Business Grant Applications, Only Has Funding for 17

The Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority, who has been accepting applications for the Working Washington Small Business Emergency Grant Program, has been flooded with over 800 applications since April 7th.

The program was announced by Governor Inslee in March to assist small businesses impacted by COVID-19. $5 million in funds were provided for the program from the Governor's Strategic Reserve Fund.

Chief Executive Officer Jim Kuntz said the grant requests exceed $8 million, but the two county area was only allocated $173,000. With each grant worth $10,000, only 17 businesses would receive help.

"Ultimately the Governor's office will select the businesses in Chelan and Douglas county." Kuntz explained, "We did ask the governor's office to spread out the grant awards so that at least a business in each of our incorporated cities would receive a grant, as well as a business in each of the unincorporated areas of the two county region."

Specifically, port officials are requesting that the maximum grant amount for Chelan and Douglas county small businesses be placed at $5,000 per business. The move would double the number of businesses receiving a grant to approximately 34.

The regional port also submitted applications for "Aspirational State Funding" in case additional state and/or federal funds could be secured for the program. That amount for the two county region is estimated at $674,000.

Port officials are also currently working with several local jurisdictions to secure Community Development Block Grant funding.

"(Local jurisdictions) think the highest and best use at this time is getting money out to small businesses to help them survive." added Kuntz, "Those conversations are active and there seems to be interest in doing it. It's just a matter of getting some interlocal agreements together and getting the money wired over so that we can get more small business grants out."

Kuntz hopes within the next two to three weeks the port authority can be entered into some funding-related interlocal agreements.