North Hennepin News

House Rep. Kristin Robbins said during a recent interview with CCX Media that the governor approved a bill that will provide more money for small businesses.

"The governor signed the small business bill into law and the program went live yesterday," Robbins said during the CCX Media interview. "It allows for $10,000 grants for small businesses that were impacted by COVID-19 closures."

Robbins said the program went live on June 24 and small businesses have until July 2 to apply.

"There will be a lottery to select the winners," Robbins said. "We're expecting far more demand than the $60 million we have for this."

Robbins said that she's really looking forward for the help for small businesses that have been really struggling.

"I'm also hoping down the road we can add to this program," Robbins said.

Robbins also mentioned that federal COVID-19 money had still not been doled out to cities and counties because of a last-minute request for a change in the budget made by the governor.

"One of many frustrating aspects of the special session we concluded over the weekend (was this issue)," Robbins said. "We had a bipartisan leadership agreement in how we were going to get the federal COVID money out to cities and counties across the state — we'd come up with a formula based on population. Everyone thought it was fair and expected it to pass."

Robbins said after the bill passed the Senate, it went to the House, where the governor then made a request for a supplemental budget request to be added to to the bill.

"We all thought it would pass the House easily but while it was in House, the governor asked for a supplemental budget request to be added on in the House and that torpedoed the whole agreement," Robbins said.

Robbins said the federal coronavirus funds would be delayed at least a month from when they were supposed to be sent to cities and counties.

"City budgets are really starting to feel some pressure because of this," Robbins said.