CITY OF BRENHAM CONTRIBUTES $60,000 TOWARD SMALL BUSINESS RELIEF EFFORTS

  

The City of Brenham is providing a helping hand to small businesses in Washington County that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brenham City Councilmembers at their meeting Thursday authorized a total contribution of $60,000 for small business relief.  $50,000 will go toward the Washington County COVID-19 Response Fund, while the other $10,000 will be used by the city to work directly with small businesses as they reopen.

City Manager James Fisher explained that the city is using $20,000 from its utility fund and $40,000 from its general fund reserves—considered one day of reserves—for this economic relief for businesses.  Chief Financial Officer Carolyn Miller said the city now has approximately 19 days of reserves remaining above the 95 required by the city’s charter.

Brenham Economic Development Director Susan Cates said the $10,000 will fund the purchase of items like freestanding hand sanitizer units, to be placed outside select businesses.  It will also help with the purchase of disposable menus for restaurants.

Cates said the fund has received about 45 applications for funding, and on Monday granted $24,000 across 16 businesses in the county.  Businesses with no more than 20 full-time equivalent employees can receive grants from $500 to $3,000.  She said some hard decisions were made on which businesses to grant money to, and hopefully this extra funding can fully fill some of the requests made by businesses.

 

Fisher said the city is continuing to work with businesses on their utility bills, so this new assistance can be used for other expenses.

 

In addition, Cates said funding will be used by the city’s economic recovery team to create a website compiling a list of menus from various Brenham restaurants.  Cates said she hopes the website, which will likely be named either BrenhamMenus.com or BrenhamEats.com, will launch by the end of next week, and invited restaurants looking to be featured on the website to contact her at scates@cityofbrenham.org.