Economic Vitality Committee Agenda and Packet 2020 05 22

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SUBJECT: GRANT PROGRAM OUTCOME ANALYSIS DATE: MAY 22, 2020 PAGE 3 OF 4 but given that we had a number of sole practitioners as well as businesses that may have been closed and technically not reduced headcount, this split of responses is still reasonable. A follow-up to this question prompted the respondents who had indicated a reduction in headcount to provide the number of people impacted. Almost 63% of those that reduced headcount had done so by less than five employees. The next highest response (25.77%), was for reductions of six to 11 employees. With the smallness of the pool of grant applications, these numbers are significant. The Additional Information section asked respondents to describe what specific action they had been required to take based on the Governor's Executive Orders. The response options for this question were designed around the primary actions Louisville businesses had to take based on their designation under the Orders. The majority of those applying for grants said they were "Defined as non -critical & forced to close" (32.95%); many of those business types either remain closed or are just starting to re- open. We also had a fair number of respondents (25.43%) that said they were defined as critical but had to significantly restrict their operations in order to remain open. Responses to the "Other" category of this question are provided in the comments section. We also sought to understand the myriad specific impacts businesses have felt during the pandemic; there were 174 responses to this question (so almost everyone that completed the survey). The top two impacts noted were "Revenue decline" (90.23%) and "Decreased customers" (81.03%). Of the types of impacts listed in the question, those that had been experienced the least were "Inability to respond to home -delivery requests" (13.22%), "Increased operating costs," (18.97%), "Restricted access to capital," (20.11 %), and "Employee absenteeism" (20.11 %). Furthering our understanding of the revenue decline impact, many applicants also provided the percentage change in their revenue —when comparing March 2019 and March 2020. The majority (27.89%) stated that revenues were down between 41 % — 60%. Many also noted that they felt a comparison of April 2019 and April 2020 would actually be worse, because many were closed completely for the month of April, when in March they might have had several weeks of sales. Even though the Emergency Solutions Grant Program was not designed to specifically track or monitor how businesses spend funds, we asked how applicants would anticipate the funds could be spent. With this question, they could also select multiple possibilities for use of funds; the majority (87.43%) said they would anticipate using the grant to make a rent or mortgage payment. Importantly, with being able to distribute the grant checks before the end of April and notify recipients checks were in the mail, we hoped the money might be in time just for this reason. While some businesses have been able to obtain rent abatement, others simply have received some deferral, which ultimately means it still needs to be repaid to continue operations. Of the 180 program applicants, 156 also elected to provide information about other forms of assistance they have sought. 116 of the 156 applicants said they had applied Agenda Packet P. 9