Local small businesses report approval for small business loans after billions of dollars added in funding

ORLANDO, Fla. — After the U.S. government poured more than $600 billion into small business loans for those struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, Orlando-area businesses are finally reporting that they’ve been approved for the funds.

The owner of Too Much Sauce in Orlando said the business was originally locked out from the first batch of loans after many were gobbled up by the biggest of the small businesses.

After Congress pumped another $320 billion into the Paycheck Protection Program, Too Much Sauce got its loan to retain its 12 workers.

READ: Local small businesses locked out of loans

“In the second round of funding 186,000 have gotten $12.2 billion, which is an average of $66,000 per PPP loan,” said Adam Markowitz, the vice president of a Central Florida accounting firm.

In Florida, businesses getting loans in the second round of funding are roughly one-third as large as the ones that cashed in originally. That works out to about 11% of the state's small businesses now getting loans.

As far as who's getting the money, that's still largely unknown.

"All of that information is supposed to be public, but SBA has at least to this point withheld that information,” Markowitz said. “There is a lot of pushing right now on both sides of Congress to get that list out so we can see where our tax dollars went to."

There is already talk that the PPP may need more money as any businesses, like restaurants, still don’t know when they will get back to full capacity and full profitability.

VIDEO: Local small businesses locked out of loans New data released by the Small Business Administration is showing that the largest small businesses got an outsized share of the money.

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