Published Date: Monday, March 16, 2020

Ron Hicks, Assistant County Executive for Dutchess County, along with Frank Castella, President of the Dutchess County Chamber of Commerce, have initiated a communication channel to hear and respond to questions from businesses. As you can imagine, there are a lot of them coming in. Dutchess County and the Dutchess Chamber of Commerce are making a new platform and newsletter to distribute and take in information.

THE GOAL:
Dutchess County aims to issue updates to business owners every day at 3 pm. This is the goal, so have patience with expectations as they hammer out this new system.

HOW YOU GET IT:
Sign up here for the Dutchess Business Notification Network.

What Dutchess County and Dutchess Chamber Of Commerce are Working On

Based on questions from businesses, the following agenda has been compiled. This is a changing list, and is directly from Ron Hicks’ desk, published here to give you a taste of where they are headed:

COMMUNICATION:
In partnership with the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce (DCRCOC), Dutchess County created a special platform and database to communicate as one with the business community (still being built). DCRCOC, Think Dutchess (DCIDA, DCLDC), Dutchess Tourism, Council of Industry, DC WIB, WEDC and DCC are partnering under the Alliance for Business and merging the databases into a special list for this event.

Dutchess County’s plan is to push out an update to the business community on a daily basis at 3 pm. Dutchess County hopes this will provide its administration with a tool to communicate to businesses, and businesses to communicate to the administration.

ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE:
- On Thursday, March 12, Dutchess County asked the state to waive the seven-day waiting period for affected workers applying for Unemployment Insurance (UI). The governor announced the waiver on Friday, March 13.
- Dutchess County has asked the state to waive the in-person visit required within two weeks of applying for UI.
- Dutchess County has asked the NYS Department of Labor to provide guidance on in-person visits to the career center and Unemployment Insurance applicants.
- Dutchess County has asked the state to request Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) from the federal government so that businesses can apply for loans through SBA.
- Dutchess County plans to ask banks Monday to extend a grace period for loans and mortgages.
- Dutchess County plans to ask the state Monday to extend a grace period for small businesses’ sales tax receipts.

NEEDS/RESOURCES:
Frank Castella and Ron Hicks are collecting needs and requests from businesses in order to push protective medical resources to the appropriate work group in EOC.

Dutchess County is assembling a panel of businesses to come up with innovative ways to stay in business or redirect employees (i.g. LCS may need workers to clean and maybe the Grandview, who needs to close, can shift its workers to LCS).

Dutchess County has a call at 3 pm with a group of employers laying people off and a group who need workers.