$ 1.76 billion in PPP loans to Vermont; Millions to Bennington, Windham County | Companies

With trade across the country continuing to grapple with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many southern Vermont businesses have made their way through the troubled waters on a surge in US payroll dollars.

Since the paycheck protection program launched on April 3 last year, Vermont has received $ 1.76 billion in funds, according to sba.gov. So far, 21,942 loans have been granted nationwide.

While the results of the cash injection have yet to be quantified, the reach of the money in southern Vermont is clear.

Ten million

As of June this year, Bennington County has received 1,197 PPP loans totaling $ 87,835,608; in Windham County, where the tables are incomplete, Vermont News and Media confirmed approximately $ 34 million in PPP loans disbursed through a local bank.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 17,384 jobs in Bennington County, according to Jonathan Cooper, community and economic development specialist for the Bennington County Regional Commission. In 2020, the number of jobs in Bennington County fell to 15,420.

Although nearly 2,000 jobs may have been lost, the number of jobs saved by the PPP loans has been significant.

The loans, according to Cooper, fall into two categories: companies that received $ 150,000 or more and those that received less than $ 150,000.

Of the 1,197 loans made in Bennington County, Cooper said 90 percent of them were less than $ 150,000, with the average loan being just over $ 33,000. The total value of all of these smaller loans, which he said supported approximately 5,400 jobs, was $ 36 million. The most important, however, are loans, he said.

“At the end of 2020, there were 610 recipients below the $ 150,000 mark and 69 above. … Those funds were badly needed to keep the business running and payroll, and that’s what the first round of the paycheck protection program was for: payroll, “said Cooper. “We have this shortage of staff and the ability to keep the workforce on the payroll during the shutdown was really important to keeping the business profitable in the New Year.”

About 500 of the loans went to sole proprietorships or corporate partnerships with one or two employees, and more than three-quarters of the loans went to companies with fewer than 10 jobs, Cooper said.

The bigger loans

There were 114 PPP loans in the county awarded for $ 150,000 or more, Cooper said, with a total value of about $ 51.8 million, with the average loan totaling $ 455,000. While the number of loans was significantly lower, these funds supported more than 5,000 employees in total, according to Cooper. However, as was the case with the 5,400 jobs supported by companies receiving less than $ 150,000 as some companies were getting more than one PPP loan, Cooper said some of those jobs were counted more than once.

Bennington and Manchester got the most aid, at 70 percent of the loans and 81 percent of the total. Bennington received 431 loans totaling $ 39.7 million, with Manchester receiving 409 loans totaling $ 32 million in second place. Dorset and Arlington ranked third and fourth, with Dorset receiving $ 7 million worth of loans and Arlington receiving $ 76 million worth of loans, Cooper said.

If the loans some companies were given weren’t granted, it would become a “very cheap loan” with 1 percent interest paid back over five years, according to Cooper. With the second drawing of PPP loans now available, Cooper said, some business owners may have seen this as a good opportunity to invest in their business while continuing to support payroll at the same time.

“Where hiring was challenging, access to very affordable capital through bonuses, salary adjustments, or other benefits could have helped with hiring and / or retention,” said Cooper. “Also, it could have been a valuable resource if companies in this market wanted to make capital investments with such high material, equipment and labor costs.”

In Windham County

In Windham County, Adam Grinold, executive director of Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. said the BDCC has worked in some capacity or another with over 700 Windham County companies to provide them with resources since Governor Phil Scott’s first emergency order in March 2020 to join, whether it was a PPP loan or the state agency for commerce and community development programs.

In addition, Grinold said that BDCC, in partnership with the Two Rivers Ottauquechee Commission, is running a nationwide program to connect people with these funding opportunities; the county’s business generator had partnered with the Vermont Regional Development Corporations on a program that included technical assistance.

The PPP loans, Grinold said, allowed companies to keep paying employees and, in his opinion, gave companies the confidence to keep their doors open.

Daniel Yates, President and CEO of Brattleboro Savings & Loan, said there is a significant amount of individual owner activity under the PPP loan program. These loans, he said, were typically less than $ 50,000 and sometimes supported a single employee.

In round one of the loans Brattleboro Savings & Loan made from early April 2020 through the end of the year, 218 of those loans were for less than $ 150,000 and 27 were for over $ 150,000.

In the second round, which began in January of this year, the bank made 170 loans. Of these loans, 154 were available for less than $ 150,000 and 16 were available for more than $ 150,000. Additionally, Yates said that of those 170 loans, 115 were second-drawing PPP loans.

In total, Brattleboro Savings & Loan has issued 315 loans totaling $ 34,150,000 across Windham County.

Saved jobs difficult to determine

Yates said it was difficult to determine how many jobs the PPP loans could have saved because they had not received definitive information from borrowers as to whether they could keep all of their employees.

When the process began, Yates said the bank made the decision to process any loan, even if it wasn’t already a customer. The decision was made for a number of reasons, including the uncertainty about how long the funds would be available: especially since the first come, first served loans are being made and people across the community are worried made whether they would be able to obtain the funds they needed for their business to survive.

“To us… that’s what it means to be a community bank. We were there at 1:30 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. working on those requests, ”Yates said. “We sit there, my entire commercial banking team and I, and enter these applications one after the other in the SBA portal.”

The goal of starting this early, Yates said, was to find a time when California was done submitting applications and before New York started submitting their applications before it got tougher.

“It worked,” he said. “As I said, it has been incredibly gratifying for us to be able to provide approximately $ 34 million in loans to our municipal companies.”

However, there is still more to be done and more resources to be made available. In addition to the second drawing of PPP funds, Grinold referred to the state’s Economic Recovery Bridge program as a valuable resource for Vermont businesses.

“Many of the smaller businesses and sole proprietorships fell between some of the loopholes that the early recovery programs purposely created,” Grinold said. “The latest [state] The program really aims to fill those gaps and ensure that companies that have not yet received funding can come first in this latest program. “

While there is still a chance some companies may not make it through this troubled period with the state’s easing of travel restrictions and increased tourism over the summer, Yates said he was hopeful.

“They’re bringing the dollars everyone saved during the pandemic and it itches to get out … so it’s been a good recovery from that point of view and hopefully it will go on,” Yates said.