Westchester County launches $10M grant program for businesses

Westchester County Executive George Latimer, along with the director of the county’s Office of Economic Development, Bridget Gibbons, and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of the Business Council of Westchester, announced a program to aid Westchester businesses struggling to recover from the impacts of Covid-19. The program is called Business FIRST.

During a news conference at the County Office Building in White Plains on Sept. 16, Latimer said that the “FIRST” in the program’s name stands for Financial Investments for Recovery and a Sustainable Tomorrow.

Using $10 million of the federal CARES recovery money the county received, the program will offer grants of up to $49,000 to qualifying businesses. The grants can be used for virtually any purpose related to the recovery from effects of the pandemic and are not restricted in the way the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program had limited the use of funds.

Gibbons said that the grants would be available to any qualifying business or nonprofit that has its primary place of business in Westchester, has 99 or fewer people on the payroll and demonstrates a revenue loss of at least 25% since March 7. Businesses have to certify that they were financially viable prior to being hit by effects from the pandemic.

“We realized early on that our businesses needed assistance. We did an economic impact survey and 75% of the businesses said they knew they were going to lose business; they knew that they were going to be struggling,” Gibbons said. “All types of organization structures are allowed: LLCs, self-proprietorship, etcetera, except for non-locally owned franchises.”

She said that examples of use of the grants include: retaining or rehiring employees; paying employee benefits; paying rents or mortgages; addressing temporary Covid-related restrictions on business activities; increasing technology such as to accommodate employees working from home; creating marketing plans; and buying safety equipment.

“We’re trying to be as flexible as possible with the use of funds. The prior programs that have been offered have been pretty restricted on how the money could be spent,” Gibbons said. “We’re really trying to work with our businesses, get the money out there and have them use it for what they need to help their business get back on track.”

“We expect to be swamped because we think the need is great,” Latimer said. “We obviously do not have enough money to satisfy every business and that is the unfortunate reality of things. If it is successful…then we will try to look and see if there are additional resources. We’ll make that decision based on how this round goes.”

There are about 39,000 businesses in Westchester and if all of the grants from the total of $10 million were for the maximum $49,000, only 204 business could receive assistance.

Latimer said that other levels of government might learn a lesson or two from the county’s effort and suggested that both the state and federal governments have the same capacity as does the county to be creative. He said his administration looked at guidelines for use of the federal CARES money and developed the new program that is both within the guidelines and creative.

“I’m  not here to challenge anybody, but I think the federal government needs to take the resources they have, and not just give them away blindly, that’s insanity, but be practical in how to you invest in rallying the economy. Just to say ‘the economy will bounce back’ is not enough,” Latimer said. “Just to assert that just as soon as something happens we’re going to get this big shoot-up in the economy, the economy’s far more complicated than that.”

Gordon said that the BCW is extremely supportive of the program and said small businesses and nonprofits are really the engines of the economy.

“These sectors have been especially hard hit and desperately need any financial resources to survive,” Gordon said. “This is certainly a ray of hope for those organizations struggling to stay alive and to keep people employed and to keep jobs in Westchester.”

Gibbons said that businesses wishing to apply for a grant can do so beginning at 10 a.m. on Sept. 21. She said that they should visit the website westchestercatalyst.com/business-first-programs/grants for further details including eligibility requirements.