As the City of Miami Beach is a HUD entitlement recipient of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, the CARES Act has made available approximately $564,276.00 in supplemental CDBG Coronavirus funds (CDBG-CV).

On May 13, 2020, Resolution 2020-31257 authorized amendment of the City's 2018-2022 Consolidated Plan and FY 2019 Action Plan in order to administer these funds, with $200,000 devoted to small business assistance.

Per federal guidelines, the grant funding is intended to “avoid job loss caused by business closures related to social distancing by providing short-term working capital assistance to small businesses to enable retention of jobs held by low- and moderate-income persons.”

Accordingly, Economic Development and Housing have developed a program providing relief up to $10,000 in reimbursable grants for small businesses of no more than 20 employees. Businesses will not be required to repay funds to the City, as long as the business, throughout a period of 12 months, retains or creates one (1) full-time employee that resides in a low-income City of Miami Beach household***.  Upon 12 months after receiving the funding, the business must verify compliance with the employee retention requirement by submitting payroll documentation. If unable to verify compliance, then any funds received from the City must be repaid.

• Eligibility. To be eligible to apply, businesses must have a valid Miami Beach BTR since February 1, 2019, be in good standing with the Finance and Code Compliance departments, and may not have been deemed an “essential business” by emergency order of the City of Miami Beach (i.e., the business must have been forced closed during the pandemic).

• Funding type.  Upon submission by eligible businesses of applications with expense receipts, the City will reimburse receipts for qualified expenses up to $10,000 per business. Each business is limited to $10,000, but there is no limit on the number of applicants or their number of applications for reimbursement, until the $200,000 program funding is exhausted.

• Permitted use of funds. 'Qualified business expenses’ are considered any operational costs such as payroll, utilities, rents, and/or COVID-related expenditures. Receipts for qualified expenses must be submitted before reimbursement is paid by the City, and businesses must also prove retention of one employee 12 months after the reimbursement, otherwise all funding must be paid back.

***Low Income Employee.  HUD develops income limits based on Median Family Income estimates and Fair Market Rent area definitions for each metropolitan area (i.e., Miami-Dade County). Low income is defined as earning 80% of the median family income. The 2020 income limits applicable for the household of the employee of the applicant business are:

The City Commission authorized use of the CDBG-CV funds for small business assistance per Resolution 2020-31257 and further City Commission action is not required. It is the recommendation of the Administration to move forward with the funding program as described, pursuant to any additional direction the Commission deems appropriate.