Montgomery County eases restrictions on CARES Act funding

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — Montgomery County has expanded the eligibility requirements for small businesses looking for COVID-19 relief under the CARES Act.

“For smaller businesses, I just feel like the help is not there,” said Amy Williams, the owner of Wholly Grounds Coffee in Dayton.

Williams said getting by during the pandemic has been a struggle.

“It’s been rough, very rough especially April was really bad and in May it was rough. It is still rough. I was building like an e-commerce site and that came to a standstill because I didn’t have funds to invest in inventory and packaging things that I needed,” she said.

Thanks to new eligibility requirements on Montgomery County’s CARES Act funding she’s hoping to be able to pick up where she left off before the pandemic hit.

“We got some money, $92 million so far, for the federal CARES Act,” said Michael Zimmerman, spokesperson for Montgomery County Jobs and Family Services.

This week, Montgomery County Commissioners voted to expand eligibility for the program to make it available to as many small businesses as possible.

“When we started a company that had 30 or fewer employees were eligible now it’s 50 or fewer employees. Likewise, we have requirements on or limitations on annual gross revenue. When we first started the program that was capped at $1 million and now we’ve bumped that up to companies who have $5 million in gross annual revenue and lower,” Zimmerman said.

Businesses interested in applying for funding can fill out an application here.