Sheppard believes most PPP loans under $150,000 will get little or no scrutiny from the federal level, so situations like the one at the Blue Hills Fire District in Bloomfield will be left for local officials to sort through, not the Small Business Administration, which is overseeing the program.
“Those applications are really going to be a one page attestation that basically you sign and you give back to the SBA. That basically says here was the number of employees I was able to keep, here was my estimated payroll, and you call it a day,” Sheppard said.
Hearing complaints from the public, two new fire commissioners have decided not to wait for the feds and will have a forensic auditor examine a $120,000 PPP loan awarded to the Blue Hills Fire Department, and where it was spent.