Coronavirus Update: South Florida Business Owners Frustrated With Paycheck Protection Program
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Thousands of South Florida small businesses are hoping they will fare better in the latest Paycheck Protection Program out of Washington, D.C. in the wake of the pandemic.
The first program ran out of money.
Paycheck protection grants forgivable loans for small businesses to keep workers on the payroll.
"We are down to the bottom of what we can do," says Howard Scheiner.
Scheiner is a former judge who runs the Mediation Group, a small mediation company in Fort Lauderdale.
Scheiner is trying to save his firm and the livelihoods of his bookkeeper scheduler and executive assistant.
"I went on and followed every direction," he says of the process to apply for an 80,000 loan through Bank of America, but it hit a glitch.
"Every three or four hours I got an email saying I didn't have enough information but with nothing saying what that additional information was," he says.
In Pompano Beach, small business owner, Brett Cramer had similar frustrations applying for a loan through Chase Bank.
"By the time they got done with it, they ran out of money and I'm in the cue somewhere," he says.
Cramer runs 'The Spice Lab,' which makes salts and peppers and spices from around the globe and sells to retailers and online.
He applied for a $400,000 loan to save the jobs of 52 employees.
"A lot of customers haven't paid us. We have inventory we can't deliver because stores are closed. I spent the last two years building the best team of workers. We are a family," he says.
He doesn't want to lose any employee and says if his business survives the coronavirus crisis he would be in a position to add workers.
Both Cramer and Scheiner hope the new federal Paycheck Protection Program will work for them, but they worry larger companies operating in South Florida will jump to the head of the line as they did during the first round.
"I presume they will run out of money. When they are giving it to big business what will be left for us?" Scheiner wonders.
If you are a publicly-traded company, go raise capital. They can issue stock tomorrow," added Cramer.
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