A quick-moving proposal is making its way through Congress that would extend the application deadline for Paycheck Protection Program loans.
As it now stands, the Small Business Administration has set March 31 as the final day in which small businesses can apply for assistance, a date that some owners have found daunting due to the amount of paperwork required to submit an application.
In testimony before the House Small Business Committee, Hilda Kennedy remarked: “These businesses need a little more help and they’re willing to do the work.”
Kennedy is the president of the Grand Terrace, California-based Am Pack Business Capital, which has been processing such applications. “We need more time to serve them,” she added.
“No applicant should be left stranded because of bureaucratic red tape,” Alice Frazier, chief executive officer of the Bank of Charles Town in Charles Town, West Virginia, told the same committee.
A group of lawmakers are now pushing for a bill that will extend the PPP application deadline to May 31. The legislation will additionally give to the SBA the authority to continue processing applications that are pending for another month after that date.
While the measure is expected to win easy approval in the House, reports indicate that it will only get through the Senate in a timely fashion if members approve a unanimous consent agreement to hasten its passage.
Despite what some critics have called a cumbersome application process, the SBA, as of early March, had approved more than 2.4 million individual loans to small businesses nationally, comprising some $165 billion.
By Garry Boulard
