Johnson says cash infusion only helps when businesses can do business
The $2.2 trillion economic aid package approved Friday by Congress includes elements that could help Steuben County businesses, small and large -- but not until they’re able to start operating again.
"There are great opportunities for when we start a recovery," Steuben County Industrial Development Agency Executive Director Jamie Johnson told The Leader.
He’s less sure about the immediate local impact.
"The immediate need of the business community is to get the economy back in business," Johnson said.
He stressed that he isn’t claiming to have a better solution to the current situation than what the federal government is doing.
"We are in unprecedented waters," he said.
Johnson said the hit to the local economy has been hard and sudden.
"Our economy went from 100 down to zero, almost instantly," he said. "Everybody has spent this week trying to understand what that means and what the economic impact is."
The overwhelming feeling is still uncertainty, Johnson said.
"The [Small Business Administration] disaster loans are great, but we’ve seen very few businesses looking to take advantage of those, simply because they don’t know whether they’re going to be able to bring people back and start operating their businesses in a week, two weeks, a month from now or two months from now," he said.
He added that just having permission from the state to keep operating doesn’t protect a business from being affected.
"Some businesses that are considered ‘essential’ have still laid workers off or shut down because they’ve lost their suppliers or seen their customers go away," he said.
Johnson said provisions such as direct payments of about $1,200 to each adult and the massive boost to unemployment benefits are useful to help individuals "keep the lights on" while New York and most of rest of the country are hunkered down to restrict the spread of the COVID-19 infection.
But he added that those provisions have "a short-term impact," and that infusion of cash can’t stimulate economic activity if there are few local businesses open where that money can be spent.
"A stimulus package is great, resources are great, but only if the businesses are able to go back to business," Johnson said.
He noted that local banks, the most important source of financing for small and medium-sized businesses in the county, have been offering help to those customers.
"All of the local lending institutions that we’ve been engaged with over the last week and a half have been phenomenal," Johnson said. "They have told their businesses, ‘Call us, we will work with you.’ A lot of them have been offering short-term deferments of payments until we understand where the end of this is going to be."
Johnson said one of the most important services the IDA has been providing is helping businesses understand the current situation, and the multiple state regulations that have been implemented by executive order over just a couple of weeks.
"We have been working hard at the IDA to keep our business community updated on the most accurate information," he said.
That ranges from the general question of whether an operation is ‘essential’ under the state orders, down to the very specific.
"We’ve worked with a business to determine if they were allowed to bring back a few specific employees just to make sure equipment was working and assets were protected," Johnson said. "We’ve served as that resource to the business community, and we’ll continue to do so."
He said those who have questions about those kinds of issues, the resources made available by the recent federal spending package or anything else for their business should contact the Steuben County IDA by email at scida@steubencountyida.com.
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March 29, 2020 at 11:00AM
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