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.
“You applied for the loan and I didn’t know nothing about it…I’m asking you, how are we eligible for a PPP loan when we weren’t in any type of distress?” Manson asked the current BHFD commissioners and staff at the October meeting.
“Manson and I did not approve that”, said Massey-Green.
Finance director Errol Bartley explained at the meeting that
he decided to apply for the PPP loan due to concern tax collections in Bloomfield would be down due to the pandemic.
“I was acting in the best interests of the fire district, because that is what a finance director should do,” Bartley said.