Baker boosts small businesses $668M
The governor announced the grant program Wednesday.
BOSTON » A day after announcing new business restrictions aimed at preventing a post- Christmas boom of COVID-19, Gov. Charlie Baker launched a massive new $668 million relief fund to help small businesses build a bridge between now and when commerce can return to normal as vaccines begin to arrive.
The small business relief effort dwarfs the $50 million in grants awarded Monday to 1,158 businesses, and could lead to thousands of new businesses receiving checks as soon as next week.
Baker rolled out the new grant fund two days before Christmas and three days before a new set of business restrictions take effect on Saturday, limiting businesses to 25% capacity and further restricting the volume of customers they are able to accommodate at any given time.
The rollback on capacity limits, Baker said, will last for at least two weeks and will hopefully be temporary to prevent Christmas gatherings from sparking the type of acceleration in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations that Thanksgiving caused.
“We get that these deci
sions have consequences, and that the impact of these decisions have serious impacts on people’s lives, and we don’t take that lightly,” Baker said.
Baker said qualifying businesses will be eligible for grants of up to $75,000 or three-months of operating expenses to help pay for salaries, utilities, rent, debt or other expenses.
The grants will be administered by the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, and businesses who have already applied to the smaller $50 million grant program will not have to reapply. The first grants will be awarded to those who could not be funded in the first round beginning next week, and a second twoweek application window will open on Dec. 31.
The initial grant pro
gram attracted 10,700 applications, Baker said. Though not all those businesses qualified, Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy estimated that $300 million to $350 million in eligible requests did not get funded in the first round.
While it’s unclear precisely how Baker plans to pay for the program, he said it relies in part on President Donald Trump signing a $900 billion federal stimulus package, which the governor said “creates some flexibility with respect to how we can use federal funds.”
“The president is obviously signaling some uncertainty with respect to the bill that’s currently before him, but the truth is the commonwealth nor the country should be required to wait any longer for this relief,” Baker said.
Trump has said the bill includes “wasteful and unnecessary” spending, while also calling the $600 stimulus payments in the bill “ridiculously low.” He has said it should be increased to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for a family. Baker said the bill was not perfect, but he urged Trump to sign it.
Baker said if the stimulus deal falls apart on Capitol Hill it will make it “a lot more complicated to make the math work.” The administration later said the program relies on $650 million in Coronavirus Relief Funding that had been committed to “other purposes” and $18 million from the general budget. The Coronavirus Relief Fund money was set to expire on Dec. 30, but would be extended by one year under the new package. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said eligible businesses include restaurants, bars, caterers, indoor recreation and entertainment venues, gyms and fitness centers, event support professionals like photographers, nail salons, barbers and retailers.
Jon Hurst, president of the Massachusetts Retailers Association, called the relief fund “an important holiday gift to many consumer-serving small businesses.