PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starting Tuesday, small businesses and nonprofits in Delaware have another chance to apply for pandemic relief money.
The state's relief grants portal will reopen at 10 a.m. It was initially open from September through Dec. 4.
"Anybody in any industry is eligible," said Damian DeStefano, director of the Delaware Division of Small Business, "but we're trying to target those whose business was most adversely impacted by the pandemic."
Businesses can receive between $15,000 and $100,000, based on their revenue.
To be eligible for aid, a business must have made less money in 2020 than in 2019. If an approved business later finds out it didn't meet that requirement, DeStefano said the money needs to be returned.
"If (businesses) retroactively are discovering they didn't have a revenue decline, we are giving them the opportunity to return the funds to us without any interest penalties," he explained.
The deadline to return the money penalty-free is Feb. 15. After that, the business will have to repay the grant plus interest.
"The reason we're doing that is so we can recycle that money back in the business community and we have time to do so," added DeStefano.
So far, only a small handful of businesses approved in the first round of grants had to give the money back.
DeStefano is also aware some businesses that already applied may not have received their money yet, or even heard back from the Division of Small Business.
"Those who applied close to the (Dec. 4) deadline," he said, "what we couldn't do at that point since we shut down the portal, what we've been doing the whole time is if there was an issue with the grant, they have to submit eligible expenses, and if there was an error with the eligible expenses, we would reject the grant and tell them 'correct this and resubmit.' That was September, October, November. Once we closed the portal, there was no opportunity to resubmit."
Those businesses can resubmit starting Tuesday, when the portal reopens. As of now, there is no deadline during this second round of applications.
More information on the program and the application process can be found here.
