Treasury Seeks Comments on Questions About SSBCI Funding
If you ever wanted to let the federal government know how to spend $200 million, here’s your opportunity. The Department of the Treasury is requesting stakeholder comments by Oct. 20 on how to spend the remaining technical assistance funds allocated for the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) (Pub. L. 117-2).
SSBCI provides funds to states, U.S. territories, the District of Columbia and tribal governments to enable them to support technical assistance programs for small businesses. ARPA provided $500 million in SSBCI technical assistance funding, and Treasury already has allocated $200 million to the SSBCI Technical Assistance Grant Program to support jurisdictions’ technical assistance plans, and $100 million to the Minority Business Development Agency to provide technical assistance through third parties. It now seeks information on how it can use its authorities to fund technical assistance to very small businesses (VSBs) and business enterprises owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (SEDI-owned businesses) applying for SSBCI credit and investments programs and other federal programs in support of small businesses.
Among the key questions that Treasury is seeking comments on are related to gaps in technical assistance to small businesses. For example, what gaps exist in the types and availability of technical assistance to small businesses that seek small business financing (e.g., across the business life cycle — seed, early stage, intermediate, and established; across the capital continuum between debt and venture capital/equity financing; across different industries; and across different geographies and regions). Treasury also wants to know how the deployment of technical assistance funding can most effectively impact VSBs and SEDI-owned businesses in communities nationwide.
In addition, if Treasury conducted a program to provide competitive grants to jurisdictions, in addition to the existing pre-allocated SSBCI Technical Assistance Grant Program, what criteria should Treasury consider in selecting recipients and sizing awards? Further, if Treasury contracted with legal, accounting and financial advisory firms to provide technical assistance to qualifying SEDI-owned businesses, what types of entities are best positioned to provide technical assistance to address gaps in availability? Also, are there existing private sector, nonprofit and philanthropic funded technical assistance services for VSBs and SEDI-owned businesses and how could Treasury’s efforts leverage that funding?
Responses can be sent to Regulations.gov and should be captioned with "SSBCI Request for Information Comments." If you have thoughts on this program, let Treasury know!
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