A key focus of Governor Phil Scott’s latest briefing today was the creation of a state program to provide financial help to businesses impacted by flooding.
Scott announced last week that his administration was working to create a $20 million Business Relief Grant program to bridge gaps in flood recovery resources. The Republican unveiled initial details Thursday.
“I want to be clear: $20 million will not be enough. It won’t even come close to meet the total need or even reach all impacted businesses. But we know it’s important to do what we can as soon as possible. We also worked to balance the need to get money out quickly with our goal to use this emergency funding to get people back to work and the doors of businesses back open. This funding is meant as a lifeline. But to reiterate, in order to make sure we fully recover we will need supplemental support from Congress to fill gaps for both businesses and individuals as well as long term mitigation measures.”
Department of Economic Development Commissioner Joan Goldstein says assistance to businesses will be based on net physical losses.
“The award calculation will be 20 percent of the net documented damage to their physical property. And that property includes things like inventory, equipment, supplies. The maximum level that they can get is $20,000. We put a ceiling on it so that we can get as many businesses that were impacted as possible to get them some funds. There will be opportunities to exceed that ceiling. Of the $20 million we will set aside $1 million for agriculture and the Agency of Agriculture will be working on developing a program specifically for farms.”
The website to accept applications is scheduled to launch next week and disbursements of grants could occur within two weeks.
During her regular flood recovery update, Commissioner of Public Safety Jennifer Morrison said getting buildings cleaned and dried remains a priority.
“Communities are using a variety of strategies to remove debris from the right-of-way. As of last night, 211 has received 4,290 calls related to the flooding. More than one-third of these calls have been from Washington County. Windsor County has accounted for nearly 12 percent and Lamoille County has accounted for just over 9 percent of the reports, yet it has the highest percentage of homes that were self-reported as uninhabitable. Every bit of the storm damage, whether it’s a car, driveway, a wet basement that you’ve pumped out yourself already, lost possessions, a blown culvert, anything that was damaged due to the floodwaters should be reported so that we can paint an accurate picture of the total damage in Vermont.”
The federal disaster declaration issued on July 14th has been amended six times, most recently to add Orleans County to Vermont counties eligible for individual assistance from FEMA.
