Clovis to offer second round of CARES Act applications
CLOVIS — Mayor Mike Morris said Nov. 23 the city of Clovis will offer a second round of CARES Act applications and cap the first round’s grants at $100,000.
The decision was made in hopes of helping businesses whose situation may have changed after the state’s “shelter in place” public health order was issued on Nov. 13, Morris said.
But some area business owners are not happy with the decisions, complaining the city changed its own rules after applications had been submitted and processed.
“It’s hard to compare businesses, but it feels like we’re getting punished for having more employees … for the money that it’s taken to survive this,” said Leal’s Mexican Food Restaurant Owner Laura Leal.
The state’s public health orders have closed multiple local businesses and limited others as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1,400 New Mexicans.
The state awarded Clovis $4.2 million in CARES Act funding to help offset the business’ losses.
“We went very hard after the $4.2 million that we’re able to use to create these business grants, and the purpose of that and the hope when we do that is we would help as many businesses in Clovis as absolutely possible,” Morris said.
Officials said last week that 81 applications were deemed eligible after the first round. A task force was prepared to provide the city with 29 applications requesting a combined $1 million.
Those first-round numbers varied between $500 and $490,000, city commissioners were told. Morris said that between 10 to 12 businesses applied for more than $100,000.
“With the 81 applications that were processed by the Chamber and the Small Business Development Center and the task force who sent those recommendations over to the city, that got right to using the (entire) $4.2 million,” Morris said noting that those were rough figures. “But when we went and applied the cap on the very few businesses that were over 100,000 then that gave us over $1 million of the funding that would still be available to offer out in the second round.”