Upon receipt of the Town of Purcellville’s executed Certification for Receipt of Coronavirus Relief Fund Payment Agreement and Revised CARES Act Funding Spending Plan (Attachment 1), the County of Loudoun transmitted the Town of Purcellville’s allocation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) funding, in the amount of $891,932, on June 19, 2020.

Staff has been working to identify all COVID-19 related and CARES Act Fund qualified expenses back to March 1, 2020.  Each expense will need to be thoroughly reviewed, to ensure it meets the eligibility criteria per the U.S. Treasury guidelines, recorded with the appropriate backup documentation (for audit purposes) and reallocated to the appropriate CARES Act Funding Expense Accounts.  Once this is completed, staff will be able to provide a thorough accounting of all expenses to date.   

Of the $891,932, the Town Council allocated $474,632 to be used for business interruption funding stimulus and relief grants.  As the Town cannot make direct monetary contributions to businesses, the Town will be entering into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Loudoun County Economic Development Authority (EDA) to process the payments for the recipients of the Town’s Business Interruption Grants.  Prior to finalizing this MOA, the EDA will need to approve the general grant program criteria. The draft of this criteria, provided as Exhibit 1, is included with the MOA (Attachment 2).  This draft document was forwarded to the EDA’s legal counsel for final review and approval last week.  The draft Exhibit 1 outlines four (4) separate grant categories:

• Modifications to Allow Outdoor Service - assistance with qualified expenses, for food establishments, related to modifications for outdoor seating to allow outdoor service while ensuring adherence to physical distancing guidelines, as defined in the State of Virginia Phase 2 and Phase 3 opening guidelines.

o   This category would award up to an $8,000 grant; based upon eligibility

o   Approximately five (5) to ten (10) grants would be available, depending upon the amount of the grant awards

o   Businesses receiving the outdoor seating grant are ineligible to apply for any other Town of Purcellville Business Interruption grant

• Businesses with annual gross receipts less than $100,000

o   This category would award up to $2,500 grant; based upon eligibility

o   Approximately sixty (60) grants would be available

• Businesses with annual gross receipts more than $100,000 and less than $500,000

o   This category would award up to a $3,000 grant; based upon eligibility

o   Approximately forty-five (45) grants available

• Businesses with annual gross receipts more than $500,000 and less than $2,500,000

o   This category would award up to a $3,500 grant; based upon eligibility

o   Approximately thirty-five (35) grants would be available

Considering the magnitude of the effort to manage the business grants (as well as the non-profit grants) process, from application to award to follow-up and audit of the use of the funding, we are considering the engagement of a contractor to manage both grant programs.   We anticipate the expense, for full service management of the grant programs, will be around 5% of the total allocated funding.  CARES Act funds may be used for contracted services associated with the management of the grant programs. 

Staff is in the process of developing criteria for the non-profit grants.  Some potential options for awards are noted below:

Out of the total CARES Act Funding, received by the Town of Purcellville, $474,632 was allocated by Town Council to provide grants to eligible businesses, with an additional $89,000 allocated for non-profit grants.  If contracted services are engaged to manage the programs, the expense is anticipated to be approximately $25,000 for both programs.  This cost was taken into consideration when calculating the number of available grants, noted above for both programs.