“When are we gonna get the money?”
That’s the most common question Matt Pugliese hears from small business owners across the state. Pugliese is the associate director of the Connecticut Small Business Development Center, hosted by UConn. He said the organization has answered questions from 400 business owners in the last three weeks. It typically answers questions from 2,000 business owners in a year, according to Pugliese.
“It’s really been that uncertainty that’s been a difficult thing for everybody to manage,” he said.
In addition to counseling businesses on the various coronavirus relief measures passed by Congress, its 14 staff members have been working around the clock to come up with strategies to help businesses survive over the next several months.
“We just don’t know with this economic situation what the end date is going to be. So, it’s really hard for everybody to think about how we should plan to move forward because we don’t have a timetable,” Pugliese explained.
One concern right now is the Payroll Protection Program, expected to run from April 3 to June 30, is already run out of money.
“One of the things we found was that incomplete applications ended not getting acted upon,” said Pugliese.
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With another round of funding possible, Pugliese says it’s important for small business owners to ask for help so they don’t miss out again. For more information on the SBDC’s free services click here: https://ctsbdc.com/
