 Welcome everyone. This is the small business resources, assistance, and safety during COVID-19 webinar. I'm Andy Constable and I'm the Economic Development Manager for the County of Santa Cruz and I'll be your host today. Just as a reminder, today's webinar has several broadcast options. It is being broadcast live on CTV YouTube channel, the County's Facebook page, and also on CTV channel Comcast channel 25 and Charter channel 71, both of which will be available for replay. The slides and video links from today's webinar will also be posted on the Economic Development website or the County SCC Vitality.org. Today's agenda and speakers range from a variety of topics. With us today is Doug Erickson, Executive Director for Santa Cruz Works, who will be speaking about local business support programs. Lieutenant Roy Morales from the Sheriff's Office of the County, which will be speaking to Business Protection Program. Candace Elliott from Fortress and Flourish, who will be speaking about managing human resources in your business. Andy Stone, the Director of the County Workforce Development, will be addressing unemployment assistance. And Brandon Napley, the Director of the SBDC will be discussing small business funding sources. And at the end, we'll be answering the questions that are posted in the chat column as best as we can. We've added a disclaimer page before we get started and the reason for this is because although we make every effort to try to bring you the most current and relative information, it does change pretty frequently. As a matter of fact, we're seeing it almost daily. So before you make any final decisions or take actions, we recommend that you verify the information and also if possible, check with your local professionals such as your accountant or legal assistance. And with that, I will turn it over to Doug Erickson, the Executive Director for Santa Cruz Works. Hi, thank you, Andy. Good to be here. As many of you know, we had our first ride out the wave on April 2 through 4 and through the generous donations of Santa Cruz County Economic Development. Thank you, Andy and Bonnie with City of Economic Development. We had $10,000 of matching funds and we had Taylor Ray, a musician play, and during that time over $40,000 worth of gift certificates were purchased. We're going to do it again on April 24. And we have thanks for the generosity of our tech businesses, including Amazon, Santa Cruz, Looker Data, MBEF and Community Foundation. We now have $40,000 worth of matching funds and we'll have our endearing Keith Greeninger playing music for us. Our goal is to drive more than $160,000 worth of gift certificates for all of our favorite businesses. Next slide, please. We've established a new meetup called CEO works and this is a way to connect CEOs. It's sort of a peer-to-peer confidential way to get together and talk to other CEOs two hours a month. And we divided up by SMB in midsize. It's run by Silicon Valley Tech Veterans, John Marshall and John Dickinson, and the sponsors for this event include both Santa Cruz County Business Council and Santa Cruz Works. Next slide, please. We're proud of the tech community coming together and creating a group to produce PPE. And there's actually a site out there called PPE4CC.org, I believe it is, could be Tom, and they're producing both face shields and cloth masks, roughly 1000 per day. And those tech community, that tech community is made up of IDFAB Labs, Joby Aviation, Land Trust of Santa Cruz, Parallel Flight, Santa Cruz Bicycles, and there's a few more out there that are slowly coming to help out including San Gabriel College and UCSC. In our first week we delivered 1000 to New York City where they really needed it, and then some 400 to Indiana, 400 to the vaccine project up at UCSC. And we have another 20,000 on order for both Monterey County as well as for Santa Cruz County Health. Next slide, please. Lastly, on May 6, we have a fireside chat with a moderator by Guy Kawasaki, and it's the groundbreaking team of UCSC that will be, Guy will be talking to including David Housler, Rebecca Dubois, and Jeremy, and I can't think of his last name, but he's not on the slide here. They'll be talking about how they've modified the human genome browser to be able to detect RNA specific to COVID-19. They now have a one day test out, and they're working also on the vaccine. So please join us May 6 at 7pm. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. So the sheriff's office has taken the approach of protecting our businesses throughout the county. And the way we're doing that is we've increased our staffing model for day shift and night shift where we have extra deputies throughout the county. And we've tasked them with identifying all the at-risk businesses. And by at-risk, I mean those businesses are kind of tucked away with large bushes in front and aren't as easily seen from the general street. So we have them doing some foot patrol, identifying security improvements for each business, and that can be cameras, maybe clearing things from their windows. So a deputy passing by can see through the window more easily and see if there's anything going on within that business. And then we also we drop off crime prevention cards that provide a phone number for future contact. And we try to coordinate with those business owners. So when we're through this pandemic, we can go back and meet with them and actually walk the business with each one. Next slide, please. So again, our deputies are, when there is someone there at the business, they're obtaining the name, the address, all their contact information, because many times they have a lead person or a manager that actually goes and checks on the business. So we're obtaining that information, the date and time of our visits, which we're logging, and the suggested security enhancements. And that can be from when they're there with the business owner or manager, or just things that are seen. Next slide. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office understands this is a tough time for many businesses, especially those that have to close for an extended period of time or have decreased their hours of operation. That's why we want to make sure business owners know what our office is doing to keep their businesses secure during this shelter in place. We provide extra checks for any businesses that are going to be closed long term. We also provide a team that can come to your business and help you out with security measures, like making sure you have cameras in the right places, making sure that your windows are uncovered. There's not places where it would make it easier for people to break into your business. So we provide all those kind of services, as well as the constant just everyday patrol that we do and extra checks that we do throughout the county. If you are interested in having someone from our office come out to inspect your business, please call 831-454-7689. Thank you. Next slide, please. And that public service announcement actually went out both in English and in Spanish and it's gotten some good hits. That went through Facebook and then also went out through Instagram. And then as you see in this slide, these are the cards that we're dropping off, although it says home security inspection, the phone number is the same. And we encourage people to sign up on our home security inspection website where they can actually register their video cameras if they have any around the business, which we can then go in and help them out with or check for any type of theft in their area. Next slide, please. Again, we're providing security recommendation, enhanced business security plans. And today our deputies have contacted and been by at least 56 businesses throughout the county from Davenport all the way down to Watsonville and the part of Valley Community. Next slide. And what we've seen the amount of commercial burglaries has actually gone down some from last year at this time. So the numbers that we're currently seeing commercial burglaries reported to the sheriff's office are 11. And that's all that we've seen throughout the county. Next slide. Thank you. Thank you, Roy and all of our public safety officers. My name is Candice Elliott and I'm the owner of Fortress and flourish providing human resource management support, mainly to small businesses and nonprofit organizations. And over the past month or so I've become a specialist in managing human resources during COVID-19. Next slide, please. So I was asked to speak with you today about rebuilding and you know what it looks like when we rebuild our companies. And I think an essential piece of that is for us to lay a solid foundation, and I'm going to outline five components of this type of a foundation. Next slide. So the first thing is to look at your policies. So this isn't just your company handbook and your job descriptions and offer letters, but also the way that you bring your employees into your company through recruitment and onboarding the way that people exit your company through terminations and then through just normal offboarding. And these processes can tend to be chaotic for employees. And so this is a time when you can focus on these processes and to refine them. Another thing to look at is your company's employer brand. So like your company brand, it helps you to target instead of your ideal customer your ideal employee. So who are they, what do they care about, and then how do you connect with them. Next slide. So the next second step here is to refine your systems. I think in every single business that I've ever started or worked in or assisted. It's had some kind of clunky or inefficient system. And so the way one of the best ways that we can increase the effectiveness of our staff and to control our labor costs is by working on refining those systems and limiting the amount of duplicate work that has to happen. And so key systems include time tracking payroll, doing time off requests or, you know, medical leave vacation leave, and then our systems around training and development. Next slide. And so the next thing is to look at the changed economy. And, you know, I hear a lot of people talking about just getting back to the way that things were. And I think that realistically, we should consider more long term, we should be prepared for some form of shelter place through the summer potentially into the fall. And so when you consider that, that then how do you move forward, and you can always, you know, hop off that plan and accelerate that plan. But if you, you know, kind of consider what is happening right now, the way that you react will be different in each different type of business. So if you look at the current economy, what will serve your clients best in this current situation that we're in right now, rather than hoping for it to change and be how do we react to what there is. And so then how do you adjust your staffing to meet their needs. Do you start bringing people back as I've started seeing companies do. And, and then as you're considering rehiring, looking at the funding that you have available to you and the funding that you have been awarded or potentially may be awarded, and how that fits into your future plan. Please. And so the fourth thing is to connect with your past and your future employees. And so your, your employees, your past employees, your potential future employees have many needs they're experiencing a lot of uncertainty right now. And you, whether you realize it or not may have better access to resources than they do, and, you know, resources of information, and, you know, resources that can help them to get through this time. And if, if people are interested in learning more about your business or your brand or technical skills, you know, getting that information out into the community. And then when you are bringing people back into your company, issuing them a rehire offer letter. So that letter should outline the name of the position, the start date, the pay and any benefits. And this is this letter will help you to be able to prove that you have offered this person a position and in the future. Next slide please. So then kind of the last thing that I want to touch on is your capacity as a leader. So effective leadership during times in crisis has many different aspects to it, but a few of the key ones is the ability to hold multiple perspectives and multiple futures. So to be able to hold in your mind the different ways that things could move forward and to create plans for each of those different things to develop the capacity of your team. And when there is uncertainty to cross train to provide them with further development in their chosen field and to communicate your plan and or to communicate your intent to create a plan. And then to remember that we build resilience through adversity. And so during this time we're building our resilience for any future challenges that we will face. And next slide. And so if you're looking for any inspiration around leadership, I recommend these two books either leaders eat last and on becoming a leader. And I actually read them when I was doing my master's degree and each of them has like so many different like quotes that I've underlined and go back to in times of challenge. And next slide. So I'd like to introduce Andy stone with the workforce development board. Hey, thanks Candice. Today I'm going to talk to you about pandemic unemployment assistance. Next slide. So just and maybe just to step back from the slide for a second here but to let you know that the workforce development board does not oversee the pandemic unemployment assistance program that is overseen by EDD. EDD is not available to give a presentation now obviously because they're slammed with all of the unemployment claims that they're currently processing. But I wanted to share this resource with the community and I'm going to give you everything I know here today so there's going to be a lot of information but unfortunately I'm not going to be able to help you with like your questions about whether I am able to collect pandemic unemployment assistance so going back to the slide now. The broad overview of it is it was part of the CARES Act, and it really is intended to help the people that are regular unemployment assistance system left behind. We're talking about business owners self employed independent contractors, including gig workers have people who have limited work history so maybe someone who just got hired right before the shelter in place started, and you know as a catch all others who are not usually eligible for regular unemployment insurance benefits. So here you'll see a matrix. It's a it's a lot of information on one slide but I'll go through each column here starting with covered individuals. This is what I was discussing before which is really looking at independent contractors self employed individuals without sufficient work history to collect regular unemployment insurance individuals who have exhausted their regular and any extended income by benefits. So if you've been on unemployment insurance and you've maxed out on your time, you could still potentially apply for this pandemic unemployment assistance. And there is a requirement that you have to self certify that you're able to work, except your unemployed due to COVID-19 related reason, we'll get to that in a minute. So benefits. So the minimum weekly benefit amount is $167, but you could qualify for a higher amount based upon your earnings. So keep that in mind is you're putting together your application. Plus there's $600 available for the weeks between March 29 and July 25. You can actually apply retroactively back to February 2. So, regardless of when when you file a claim you can claim back to the time you were unemployed, going back to February 2. So you'll be able to jumping to the next column receive up to 39 weeks of benefits, minus any regular unemployment insurance that you receive from February 2 2020, all the way through December 26 2020. So before I mentioned it had to be a COVID-19 related reason. I put them on the slide here for you. I'm not going to read all 11 for you, but this presentation is going to be available later today at scc vitality.org. Next SCC is in Santa Cruz County vitality.org, and you'll see the reasons here. They basically just outline what what you need to show to prove that you're unemployed due to a COVID-19 related reason. Okay, next slide please. So other other considerations here if you're not a citizen of the United States you cannot be paid a pandemic unemployment assistance unless you were legally permitted to work in the United States. In addition, you must be authorized to work for any week of assistance that you claim to be eligible for. Next slide. So claims will be you can file your claim as of this coming Tuesday, April 28. So I checked right before we got on this webinar today and Edd still does not have a website dedicated to accepting these pandemic unemployment assistance claims. I know they're working on getting it together as well as some specific instructions about how to file the claim, but I put here Edds homepage Edd.ca.gov is a place for you to check before Tuesday, April 28. We anticipate that instructions will be on there and later in the presentation here I have slides with links in them that will take you directly to more information on this assistance. And also if you're unsure if you're an independent contractor and employee you may have been misclassified. Edd recommends that you file regular unemployment insurance benefits and they'll sort out what you're eligible for. Next slide. So how soon after you submit your application can you expect to receive your pandemic unemployment assistance benefits. So if you are approved and after completing the certification process, you may be able to receive your first payment within approximately two days. That's if you have an existing Edd debit card. If you don't, then you can expect within four to seven days when new debit cards and checks are mailed. Next slide. And then my last slide here is for more information here are a couple areas that I recommend you visit. Basically this whole slide presentation was taken from these two websites so I wanted to make them available for you here. Edds pandemic unemployment assistance website, which is too long to say and probably too long to write down so again this will be on the sec vitality.org website. I'll put it out and click on the links and then the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency also has some information on a PUA website that I recommend you check out. So next slide. And now I'd like to introduce Brandon Napoli from the SBDC. My name is Brandon Napoli. I'm the director of the Small Business Development Center, located here at Cabrio College. We have been here for a little over 30 years, focus on helping businesses in Santa Cruz County start and grow. And I'm going to be talking about the financial developments, specifically from the federal and state, and then a little bit locally as well. So as I'm sure everyone is aware of the CARES Act went into law on March 27. That had two different types of loan programs, the payment check protection program, known as the PPP and the idle economic injury disaster loan. The PPP has been exhausted on this first tranche. The idle continues. We see people in the queue for that. And I'm going to get more into details on each one of those programs right now. So a recent development actually just within the last hour, the president signed in what some are calling CARES Act 3.5 $484 billion and this is comprised of 60 billion for idle. And that's 50 billion for the loan and 10 billion for the advance. I'll get in the details on the difference between those two. The rest of it was for that PPP payment paycheck protection program, 310 billion overall, 250 billion is going to be dispersed through all types of lenders and then 60 billion is now being earmarked for the community based lenders and midsize banks and credit unions. The rest of it was geared towards the healthcare hospitals and testing. Overall, there are four different SBA products, the PPP, the idle, which has a 10 K advance, the SBA express bridge loan program and also SBA debt relief. I'm going to go into the weeds with the payment protection program. This is 100% federally guaranteed loan with the following goals of helping to keep your employees either, you know, ideally working but definitely employed. This covers near term operating expenses between February 15 and June 30. Most businesses are eligible if you have fewer than 500 employees. This includes now sole props and independent contractors, which I'll get in a little more detail, which were allowed to start to apply last week. Additionally, 501C19s can apply for this program. Loans are not supposed to be over 10 million. There's obviously been some backlash. I'll look into the news on large organizations taking some of these loans and with the CARES 3.5, 60 billion going towards the smaller credit unions and banks and CEFIs, there's been a move towards trying to get more of this money into the small business owners. Additionally, sole props and contractors can apply for this. They are the last to be able to. So when this reopens and what we've been told is Monday at 1030am Eastern time that the SBA will open up the faucet to allow banks to start to process this loan. But my recommendation is that you apply with your bank now and get into the queue as soon as possible. Here we'll get into a little more details if you're a sole prop on how you actually can calculate this amount. Again, these slides will be on the website sccvitality.org if you need to refer to the actual calculation. I didn't mention this, but the Small Business Development Center, we have advisors that provide free of cost services to small businesses to help them fill out this paperwork and apply. We have weekly conversations with several banks to understand where they are with processing these applications. To help with this, and by all means, please reach out to us, our website is SantaCruzSBDC.org. This program can be used for payroll expenses, primarily, but it can also be used for interest on mortgage rent lease payments utilities interest on other debt obligations. Regarding fees, there is no fees to the borrower. I want to make this a strong point. There are a lot of scams developing out there. You should not be paying any fees. If you're working with a middle person, that person may charge a fee to the bank, but they may not charge a fee to the business. You should not be paying fees for this type of a loan. The term is up to two years. The first six months are deferred. Interest rate is 1%. No collateral, no personal guarantees on this. And part of the most important thing is that there's a loan forgiveness. 75% or more needs to be spent on payroll costs. And the rest, the 25% can be spent on the rent utilities and interest payments, but what is spent on those items will be forgiven. Something to take into consideration. Some banks are asking that you set up a checking account. I do think that is a best practice that you really start to document and that starts with creating a different account of the money goes in and what you expense out of it. There's not enough guidance on the back side to know exactly how this is going to be audited. And so the more that you can keep track of the money that you received and the money and how you spent the money. The best case you have to not have a headache with having this be forgiven. If you don't have a lender, there is a website here, sba.gov, backslash paycheck protection, backslash find which has different lenders here in Santa Cruz. My recommendation is to go with the one that you have the best relationship with, probably go with the smaller bank as well. So typically I've seen from the clients that we work with, they have been more responsive to their clients as some other banks have seems to be overwhelmed with with trying to service clients nationwide. Also, there are online lenders that are offering their services. The one that I would pretty much only recommend is called funding circle. They've been endorsed by other nonprofits that believe that they are doing a fair job at processing this. Moving on to the idle loan, two parts of this. There's the 10,000 that's forgiven that can be really used for anything. This has been told determined by equating $1,000 per employee that you have that you're eligible for this. If you were, if you already applied and did not apply for this, you can go back through the portal. If you go on the SBA's website and asked to and click a box to actually request this $10,000 advance. Eligibility wise, you need to be in operations at the beginning of the year. Also meet the SBA table size standards and the rest of this list. You can also be a 501C3 with fewer than 750 employees to moving on maximum loan size of 2 million. We've seen the first tranche the average loan size was just over $200,000 in California. So we're pretty optimistic that those that are getting the loans are getting a decent amount of the working capital. We recommend that you do apply for six months of working capital for this. The terms 30 years, 11 months deferment on the payments, low interest rates. There are no prepayment penalties, no cloud requirements at the 25,000. If you're an owner 20% or more, you need to be involved in this, but you're not going to have a personal guarantee unless you you apply and get approved for over 200,000. As I mentioned, there's also other SBA programs, the SBA express bridge loan being one of them. We are looking for local lenders that are offering this. Most SBA lenders are overwhelmed right now processing the PPP loans. On our website, Santa Cruz SBDC.org, we do have a list of all SBA lenders in the county that you can take a look at and try to connect with another one. But this is a loan that's supposed to be very quick to access and up to 25,000. I also want to mention if you're in the city of Santa Cruz, they also have relaunched a micro loan program. And so you can look on their website to find out more information. SBA debt relief. If you currently have an SBA loan, a 7A504 micro loan, your payments over the next six months will be taken care of by the SBA. So that is a more recent development and one that ideally will help alleviate any kind of current debt obligations. Moving on to California, the California iBank has been set up to offer really two different products. One is their focus on micro loans. And this is being offered through different banks willing to participate and work with institutions that are guaranteeing their loans. One is Cal Coastal Locations Salinas is one of those that is guaranteeing loans. I have listed a couple of banks who have offered this in the past. Santa Cruz Community Credit Union Heritage Bank, Pinnacle Bank, Pacific Valley Bank, and California Farm Links specifically focused on ag. Again, I recommend you reach out and just see what they're doing with this product. This is one specifically geared towards those businesses that are ineligible or have been turned down for the PPP or idle loan. Several non-profits or ag would qualify or if you have credit issues may qualify if you weren't maybe in business during that initial start date of the beginning of the year. This might be a better program for you. The interest rate is fair at prime plus 1%. The last thing on this slide, there is a sales tax deferral program and I have a link right there. If you've made less than 5 million taxable annual sales, you can take care, you can take advantage of a payment program 12 months interest free for up to 50,000 of sales and use tax liability only for more information visit that website. Additionally, we were starting to see some grants come into consideration. Here's one Verizon offers. If you just look up Verizon Small Business Recovery Fund, you should be able to apply at this point. I was just made aware that Salesforce also looks like they were creating some type of a grant program. I don't have any information on that at this point, but again, look into Salesforce for their grant program as well as Verizon Small Business Recovery Fund. I understand that every penny really goes a long ways, especially if it's a grant. Thank you, Brandon. So what we'll do at this point is see if we can answer some of the questions that have come up in the chat. So give us a moment here for that. Looks like it's one from I have a small business self employed and had one employee starting on March 17 the day we went into shelter in place. I have not had received the stimulus or any response from the idle application or Edd. Do you know why? Brandon or Andy, could you handle that one? We've got a loan specialist as well on Scott Rogalski. Scott, you might be best to speak specifically into that. Yes, yeah, definitely. Can you repeat the question real quick? Yeah, they've applied for an idle loan and an application to the Edd, but they haven't heard anything. And I think, yeah, and they're self employed with one employee. Okay, cool. Yeah, it depends on when they apply for the idle. If they apply for the idle after March 29, then they're still in the queue and SBA is going to get back to them even though they shut down the web portal. And if they're a silver prider with one employee, they can also apply for the Triple P. Also, when it relaunches, actually, the monies don't come out to the marketplace till Monday, but they can still apply and get ahold of me or Brandon and still apply to get their name in the queue so they're ready. And then Edd, the whole thing about Edd as a silver prider, legislation hasn't really come out for that yet per se, but we're waiting on that. Okay. That pretty much is it as far as questions and we're pretty light this time. Look like I'm getting a couple more here while the PPP second wave has been launched. The expectation is that it will again be exhausted. I'd like to suggest surveying all Santa Cruz County small businesses to explore the needs so that we can present it to the leaders will definitely take a look at that. I called my bank where I have my business account and they said that they don't take any more PPP applications. I called my personal bank and they said I need a business account. How can I apply? So you're going to have to go to a lending institution that's not a bank or is a bank but they're taking non-customers. The best one that we know about is called Lendistry. You can go online and apply right now with Lendistry and they'll put your name in the queue. And the great thing about Lendistry is that they're not a Chase bank, so you're not going to be 100,000 person in the waiting list. You're going to probably be 500 or 1,000 or whatever, but not 100,000. But yeah, I'll put it in the link. If you need help applying and getting all your paperwork ready together for this is something that Brandon and his team can do at no cost. But I recommend that you go to this website and apply. The only thing about Lendistry is that their maximum for the Triple P is 250,000. That's their max that they'll do. Okay. After receiving the PPP regarding the eight weeks to start paying payroll, what happens if we are still not open for business? Do we pay employees for not working? Yes. The Triple P, if you get the money for the Triple P, the eight weeks start the day you get the money. And if you, if you're not open, you're supposed to pay your people to sit at home. Unfortunately, that's the way the law was written. And that's why it's kind of a tricky loan. But if you get funded, the only way you're going to get it all forgivable or most of it is if you spend it mostly on payroll in the first eight weeks. Yeah, I'll just add to that because it's been a questions come up in a lot of different webinars. Paying employees for not doing their traditional work doesn't seem like it fits the box, but this is, you know, thinking outside the box here. What are the things that you would hope that you could have gotten accomplished that you didn't have the resources to do before, or just trying to potentially even start to think differently about the job descriptions and what your employees are doing. But, you know, overall, the employees may never come back to their exact job. And so to kind of think through what they could do, even start to do or start to prepare for and use that time wisely. Another PPP question regarding here it is bear with me a second. If I get the PPP funds, I will have to pay my employees even though they're home I understand that I am planning on paying them a fixed average amount for the eight weeks so that I qualify for the loan forgiveness is this advisable. So, I mean, whatever. Alright, so whatever status the people are that you for load or let go where they were before you let them go whether they're full time or part time. That's what you need to hire them back as. So, that's, that's the basic part of it. So I'm not sure if there was another question inside that. Kind of on the same frame of mind says can I pay certain employees more than they were and less money to another employee for example manager versus new hire is the PPP loan forgiveness looking at each individual payment. Yeah, so they are, they are looking we haven't actually gotten word yet on that answer. If you can hire somebody back and pay him more. So we'll have to parking lot that and get back to you. Lastly, I applied for B of a loan they said they would submit my app this time but I don't trust them should I start elsewhere. I would say so far you the big banks are going to be the hardest to get through. And as we mentioned the 260 billion is probably going to be gone. It's going to launch Monday but probably gone by Friday. So I would apply. I would apply it is at a bank that is not a brick and mortar that you can just go online and apply like industry or some other ones that exist. Like there's a bank called tea bank tea isn't Tom. They're out of Texas but they do national SBA seven a loan so you could technically go online and apply with them and there's some other ones too. I think we're going to wrap it at that point. I want to thank everybody for their participation all the speakers and also want to thank everybody for listening in. Stay safe, stay healthy and we will hopefully be back to you with more information in the couple of weeks. And I will look forward to it at that time. Thank you again for your participation.