Local News

At Monday’s virtual session of Smiths Falls’ council’s committee of the whole, Jennifer Miller, manager of tourism and economic development for the town, brought forward a recommendation for financial support package for local businesses suffering unrecoverable expenses due to the current pandemic.

Miller suggested that council use some of the historic reserves from the Small Business Advisory Centre program amounting to $50K. 

Targeting small operations with less than 20 employees, the program would receive applications requesting grants of up to $1500 each. 

This amount would permit the reserve funds to benefit 33 businesses at a minimum. Current expenses including those incurred back to March 17^th would be considered. 

Miller’s office would be the approval authority and Valley Heartland CFDC would administer the funds. Full application details will be available after council approval on the town’s website.

The committee approved this action, a decision which will go to the next regular council meeting for ratification.