John Schroder
State Treasurer John Schroder announces his office distributed 262-million dollars in main street recovery grants to 20,751 small businesses. Schroder says the pandemic devastated small businesses and the Main Street Recovery Grant Program gave them a fighting chance to survive.
“Very successful program and very happy that the legislature allowed the Treasury to be the administrator of it,” said Schroder.
The state legislature established the Main Street Recovery Grant Program in June. It used federal coronavirus relief aid to provide up to $15,000 to small businesses. Schroder says the average grant handed out was worth $12,000 and they surpassed their goal of providing assistance to minority and veteran owned businesses.
“The goal in the law was 40-million so we did more than four times that,” said Schroder.
Schroder says they helped small businesses in every parish, but unfortunately there were some who tried to take advantage of the program. He says 107 suspected fraudulent applications have been turned over to the Office of the Inspector General for investigation.
“It’s really a shame that we have people who think nothing about trying to steal this money, taking from people who are running legitimate businesses,” said Schroder.
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