Larimer County to distribute share of state small business aid through largest cities

FORT COLLINS — Larimer County will spin off administering its share of the $37 million in small-business aid passed in a special session of the Colorado General Assembly last year to the county’s three largest cities.

The details, first made available in agenda documents for the Fort Collins City Council’s Tuesday meeting, show initial details for agreements between the county and the three largest cities in the county.

Dena Jardine, the county’s associate director in its Economic and Workforce Development Department, said the three cities already built similar systems to get relief to its local businesses earlier in the pandemic and using those existing systems would help the county hit deadlines within the legislation.

“The county would need to create a system to develop and deploy these funds and given the very short timeframes, it made good sense to partner with the municipalities,” she said.

The county and the three hub cities will meet on Jan. 29 to review the number of eligible applicants and decide how much each applicant in their relief tier will receive. Those tiers are based on the applying company’s 2019 revenue.

Fort Collins will manage distributions to itself, Laporte, Livermore, Red Feather Lakes, Wellington, Timnath and the unincorporated areas between those cities.

Jardine said Loveland will manage the towns of Berthoud, Masonville and the portions of Windsor and Johnstown within the county, while Estes Park will manage claims from Big Elk Meadow, Drake and Glen Haven. Any business can apply with the city that is most geographically convenient for them.

The three hub cities will get 4.5% of the 5% administrative fee that each county is allowed to levy from its distribution of state funds.

Fort Collins staff estimate the city will get $1.5 million in funding. Jardine said the county will know how much it will receive from the state on Friday.

All of the details in the Fort Collins council documents are subject to change, as they are awaiting final legal review and have not been finalized.

It’s unclear how much Loveland and Estes Park anticipate receiving. The Loveland City Council and Estes Park Board of Trustees have not placed the county’s program on their agendas for their respective meetings as of Monday morning.

A small business is eligible to apply if it had less than $2.5 million in receipts in 2019, lost more than 20% of its revenue in 2020 due to COVID-19’s effects and intends to stay in business for the six months after it gets a grant. The aid is also restricted to food-and-drink establishments, gyms, caterers and movie theaters.

It also must comply with all state and local health guidelines for reducing the spread of the virus.

Local businesses can apply for the aid at www.larimer.org/sbr. The deadline is Jan. 27.

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