Image courtesy of iowasbdc.org

A federal program through the Small Business Administration to provide financial relief during the COVID-19 pandemic has recently started up again.

Small Business Development Center Regional Director for North Central Iowa Kimberly Tiefenthaler tells Raccoon Valley Radio an additional $3.5 billion was added to the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP). This program allows for small business owners to apply for a loan to guarantee employee payroll while COVID-19 continues to financially impact the businesses. Tiefenthaler notes there was a temporary stoppage of the program, due to it running out of initial funds.

“As we’ve heard on the news some very large businesses and entities that did take up quite a bit of that funding. However as we’ve heard that funding’s being turned back to the federal government and will be back available to fund some of our small businesses. It was a challenge for lenders, but I think our community banks did a wonderful job of really staying after that and really serving our local businesses very well.”

Tiefenthaler encourages small businesses that have not applied for the PPP program to do so at this time. She adds that no new applications are being accepted at this time for the economic injury disaster loans for COVID-19. However, she is hopeful the program will begin to accept new applications soon.