Summit County is offering up to $15,000 in grants for businesses that are experiencing a loss in revenue due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The county is dedicating $250,000 of the $1.8 million it received in surplus CARES Act funding to business relief, County Manager Scott Vargo said at a Board of Health meeting Thursday, Dec. 3.

The application for businesses to receive a one-time grant of up to $15,000 of that funding opened Friday, Dec. 4, and is due by Monday, Dec. 14. The grant money is intended for essential business-related expenses, such as rent, payroll, mortgages, utilities and supplies. Businesses have until Dec. 30 to spend the money.

To qualify, businesses must meet the following criteria:

• Have a physical building on commercially zoned land in unincorporated Summit County
• Have a current sales tax license if the business sells products
• Be able to demonstrate a 20% loss of revenue from 2019 to 2020
• Have fewer than 100 employees

Summit County isn’t the only governing body to offer a second round of assistance for businesses. The town of Breckenridge set aside $1.1 million to give to its restaurants and employees in response to level red restrictions. According to the county’s website, people with businesses in town boundaries should contact the town governments about assistance.

When the county first offered relief funding to businesses in the spring, the funding was focused on restaurants and retail stores. This time around, the county is expanding eligibility to include personal services businesses and property management businesses.

Home-based businesses, short-term rentals, real estate businesses, professional service providers, publicly traded corporate entities and their subsidiaries are not eligible.

At Thursday’s meeting, Commissioner Thomas Davidson said it’s important to include property management companies because many smaller, housekeeping services fall into that category.

“For those kinds of small businesses, a lot of them are first generation to Summit County or to this country even,” he said. “I absolutely am sure they need help.”

The county decided to keep the requirement that businesses must have a physical building to be eligible for the funding in an effort to ensure the funding is going toward essential expenses.

“We’re not going to get into how much they use of it for personal versus business,” Finance Director Marty Ferris said. “We’re trying to make it as streamlined as possible.”

Vargo said the county has the ability to reevaluate if it finds that not all of the resources are exhausted.

“Maybe first crack is brick and mortar businesses located in commercially zoned (areas) and if that doesn’t generate the level of interest that we expect it might, then we could come back and add some other categories,” he said.

Businesses can apply for the funding by going to SummitCountyCo.gov/smallbusiness.