Call with DCEO

Checking in about how Illinois and local counties will use distributions from the American Rescue Plan (ARPA)

Hello, Happy Friday to you all! Ali had a chance to touch base with Isaac from the BACP earlier this week (the City of Chicago) and we posted some updates from the most recent information shared from the city earlier this week.

In the meantime, we wanted to reach out to the DCEO to inquire if our industry was being considered/included in distribution of the funding that Illinois has received via ARPA.

Here is what we learned: The way it works is similar to the CARES ACT - there is money that has been allocated to the state - half now and half next year. About $13 Billion for state and counties with about $998 million for cook county alone.

We were eager to discuss that many event/wedding industry businesses did not get money from the Illinois BIG grants or county funding and see what we could do to learn more about making sure that we get considered within this round of grant money.

Currently, the state still needs to appropriate the funds through a budget process. Right now there is ongoing discussion between budget offices and legislatures on how to allocate those funds. It does seems likely that they will want to have another round of BIG grants - most likely a large round.

The state is interested in being able to specifically target industries and business that have not gotten direct support. For example, while there is the SVOG (shuttered venue grant), that was not for every business within the industry as you are all probably aware already. The DCEO also noted that in addition to the majority of our industry being left out of qualifying for that money, that hotels were not included either. The state is hoping for flexibility with prioritizing industries that are most impacted and businesses that have not received significant support, or enough direct support to really help them to move beyond the pandemic. These would be businesses + industries who do not qualify for SVOG, or restaurant money either. Maybe these businesses did receive some money through PPP but it was ultimately not enough.

The state is working on this with the Governor's office with how they would like to structure this. There is a concern about how to get this structured and we talked about that for a bit. For example, legislatures are interested in the program running well (of course), and they have opinions on who should qualify and who should not. The DCEO is hoping for flexibility and is aware of US and our industry and made a point to thank the coalition and its members for their ongoing availability and sharing of information (so THANK you for always being here when we ask!). They even went so far as to explain that with the events industry they felt rather “hamstrung” that so many funds were appropriated downstate with the BIG grant leading to so many people/businesses being left out. The justification was that there was direct funding from the CARES act for upstate counties, and downstate legislatures wanted downstate to be recognized. This is not an issue this time. This will go to all counties so there should NOT be that constraint. This is good news!

What we can do: The advice loud and clear was to continue to communicate with legislatures.

Communicating that we are in touch with DCEO, and that they are aware of us, and of the financial impact the pandemic has had on our businesses and industry. It is important that WE communicate that by providing the state with flexibility within the structure so that our needs can also be met would be immesley helpful. The money is now at the state level -> federal treasury transferred to state treasury. The CARES act had similarities to this current structure, with the state being able to use that money for a whole lot of things including small business support. THIS IS A GOOD THING for us. Essentially, there has to be a process in short with state legislature appropriating the money to certain industries, and that we make ourselves heard to better our chances of being one of them.

We are working on a plan to continue efforts to reach to state legislatures and will share the letters for you to send as well.

Stay tuned, more to come but we did want to get this out so you knew we were working on it. To those celebrating - Happy Easter! and to all have a wonderful weekend. 💚

Ali, Collin and Michelle