More businesses may qualify for COVID-19 help from the City of Knox than previously thought, but it may take a while for them to get the funding. The city got $250,000 to give to small businesses as part of the state’s COVID-19 Response Program.
But Mayor Dennis Estok told the city council last week that the federal guidance seems to keep changing. “They’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “Sole proprietors weren’t eligible. Then they say they were. Then they come back and said they had to have employees. Now today, just like the beauty shops and that, they’re eligible.”
Estok said the process isn’t turning out to be as quick as promised, and businesses probably won’t see any money until at least June. “This program here was supposed to be, according to our OCRA rep, quick, fast . . . not a lot of red tape. We would have the money in a couple weeks from the time we got accepted,” Estok said. “It has turned out to be an OCRA red tape, documentation, and that’s what it is.”
One of those additional steps included officially selecting the Kankakee-Iroquois Regional Planning Commission as the city’s grant administrator. The mayor explained that KIRPC had already been doing the work, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development required the city to get a second proposal. In the end, KIRPC offered to do the work for no more than $5,000, while the North Central Indiana Regional Planning Council’s proposal came in at $12,500. The city council formally accepted KIRPC’s proposal last week.
Businesses seeking funding through the program have until May 29 to fill out an application. A committee of city officials will then review them and determine how much money each qualifying business will get.
