Warren Small Business Grant Program First Round Almost Completed

WARREN, Pa. – The Warren County Commissioners are changing the schedule of the Warren-SBG Program in order to allow for more review time by the various contracted agencies employed to provide a report on the applications submitted during the first round. The Commissioners received a report provided by the WCCBI in recent days and to vote on the recommendations at a special meeting schedule for Wednesday, Sept. 16 at 5:30 pm in the Jackson Courtroom. This moves the first round schedule back one week to provide more time for review.

The Warren-SBG Program has collected over 70 applications with an estimated total request of $1.9 million, which almost doubles the first-round total grant allocation of $1 million. Due to the volume of the requests, and the complicated nature of reviewing the financial information, the WCCBI and the supporting financial review agencies are being given additional time to ask for additional documentation and further review the documents already submitted.

As a part of this change, it is expected some of the parameters of the program may change so that businesses with employees are the focus of the first round allocations. This is to assure that the economic impact is felt greatest in the business community during the first round.

The report generated by the WCCBI will be made publicly available and will be voted on at the special meeting on Sept. 16. It is expected that the full $1 million grant allocation in the first round will be disbursed as a part of the execution of the program.

“We feel this has been a very successful round,” said Jim Decker, President of the WCCBI, “and will be an opportunity where we can use this funding to help local businesses and nonprofits. There is clearly a need and we’re going to help address it with this program.”