The third weekly press conference on COVID-19 Wednesday got down to business with much of the discussion about the local economy and how the pandemic is affecting it.

This week’s panel included Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington, County Commissioner Cary Groninger and Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rob Parker.

City & County Updates

Thallemer kicked it off by announcing that the city’s executive order for its emergency leave policy for city workers ends Friday, but he will be extending that for another two weeks to May 1. He said that’s assuming the state will extend its stay-at-home order another two weeks as it was set to expire Monday.

Groninger provided an update on the county, saying the county is still open for business by appointment only. Department heads are receiving phone calls and making those appointments.

On Tuesday, he said the county commissioners voted to extend the county’s stay-at-home order for county employees for as long as Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb extends his order. Holcomb is expected to announce what his plans are on Friday.

Once the county reopens, the first week will be for county employees to return to work, but offices will be closed to the public. The second week, offices will be reopened to the public, but things like social distancing will still be practiced.

Thallemer said late last week, “We did get a little bit of a prediction of how this COVID will impact revenue at (the) county and city level. Dr. Michael Hicks, economist at Ball State University, did some calculations, and we’ll probably be looking at the big impact being next year, anywhere from 15 to 20% reduction in our local option income tax.”

Thallemer said Hicks’ projection was based on modeling.

“It indicates there’s going to be a negative impact on state revenue and local revenue as far as counties and cities, and the early prediction is 15 to 20% reduction in 2021 revenues from the local option income tax,” he said.

He noted the city is working with its state association and the Association of Indiana Counties and Aim are both working with the governor’s office to try to mitigate some of that reduction and provide some kind of stimulus to cities, towns and counties.

Business Loans

Thallemer said he’s been working with Kosciusko Economic Development Corp. (KEDCo) CEO Alan Tio, exploring a small business relief loan for local small businesses from the COVID-19 impacts.

“Details will emerge on that, but I know the city will run this up the flag pole with council and get their thoughts on it, and I think we all feel probably it’s important to look at it as small businesses are certainly impacted significantly,” he said.

Many Small Business Administration loans are starting to come through and those will be helpful, Thallemer said.

Groninger said the commissioners on Tuesday voted to support KEDCo seeking funding from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to provide loans to businesses for employee retention. The loans may be at 0% interest or possibly forgiveable.

Parker said, “By now, if you’re a small business, if you’re under 500 employees, I hope you have taken advantage of the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan or the EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) from SBA.”

If anyone needs information on those loans, he said they should go to the Chamber website at kchamber.com where there’s links to all the information.

“We do know that PPP is oversubscribed at this point, so if you haven’t submitted your application, the likelihood that you’ll get it through is probably low, but I’m hearing there will be additional funds, probably in a week or so. That’s the hope,” Parker said.

EIDL loans are still available for those individuals who need that, he said.

“And if you apply for that loan, you can get up to a $10,000 advance if you can show you’ve been economically impacted by the COVID-19 virus. That is a $1,000 per employee up to the $10,000,” he said.

The fastest way to apply for those loans is through a person’s bank, which is the fastest way

“If you don’t have a bank, if you are banking with an institution that can not apply for a PPP loan, there are three ways to do that,” Parker said. Those are Lendio, Fundera or kabbage.com, and links to those are available through the chamber’s website.

Shop Local

Parker mentioned a few things the Kosciusko Chamber has done to support local businesses.

He said they’ve donated the big “open” signs for all the restaurants to let people know they’re open for curbside or carry-out service.

He said people should check out To Go Kosciusko to see what businesses are still supplying food and what their specials are. After a week that group was created on Facebook, he said followers jumped up to 8,000.

“It’s a great way for us to help support our local businesses,” Parker said.

Another group the Chamber created through Facebook is Support Kosciusko. “And that’s just an area where if you need something, if you’re a nonprofit, if you’re serving our individuals in this community, you can post something on Support Kosciusko,” he said, encouraging people to post on there and help one another to get through the pandemic.

From an economic perspective, Parker said it’s “trying” times.

“Supply chains are being disrupted. So we’re going to see challenging times ahead. I just want to encourage people to really shop local and support each other, and we’ll ge through this together,” he said.

Recently, Polaris Boats in Syracuse announced it was permanently laying off over 100 employees due to financial considerations and Wildman Business Group in Warsaw announced it was temporarily laying off 48 employees due to the effects of the pandemic. Parker said, at this time, he hasn’t heard of any other business laying off employees due to COVID-19.

“The Polaris situation is a little different than Wildman. I think that’s appropriate here to note. I think Wildman will come back from this pretty quickly once their customers come back,” Parker said. “Polaris has made a decision to completely shut down the lines that are being manufactured in Syracuse and that is a long-term impact. It’s devastating to see the Rinker Boat name – that we’ve all probably grown up and seen around in our community – no longer being made here. No longer being made period.”

He said it’s sad to see that, but every business has a right to make decisions that are in their best interest. “It definitely has significant impacts on the families and individuals who are working there. There is good indication that there are jobs in Elkhart for them, but again that is quite a commute for any individual, especially if you’re in Warsaw and working in Syracuse, to commute to Elkhart,” Parker said.

Thallemer added there are probably a lot of furloughs on the small business side, and there are stimulus options available to those businesses.

“So there are stimulus available, and I think, with unemployment numbers being through the roof, I’m sure there’s a lot of small businesses that are furloughing folks with the intention of bringing them back when this all comes back together,” Thallemer said.

He noted a larger company in the area – Zimmer Biomet – shut down for two weeks.

“I think there are businesses that will be permanently impacted by this,” Thallemer said.

He said there are small businesses that have been hit pretty hard by all of this, but hopefully they are taking advantage of the stimulus packages available.

Groninger said, “I think a lot of these small businesses, the administration has given these businesses a lot of tools in the toolbox to use, whether that is the PPP loans or the EIDL or even the unemployment. They’ve increased that (unemployment) significantly. Indiana historically has had a pretty low payment on their unemployment. But I think it’s (now) an additional $600. So I think there’s some significant money that each business has to look at what’s best for them.”

He said there’s no business plan which could have been prepared for this pandemic, and it will take some time to get through this.

On the extra $600 unemployment, Parker said, “It is challenging for people who are unemployed right now to get that. It does take time. The system is overwhelmed as there are a lot of people being laid off. But I can say I commend the federal government and our legislators in making sure there’s extra dollars on the demand side of the curve on the economic perspective. That’s one thing we learned from 2008, is get the money into the hands of people quickly so that it can blunt a recession. So that’s the hope, that’s the prayer. And that extra money then will help create demand, which will bring our companies back.”

Back To Normal?

A common question for many during the COVID-19 pandemic is, when are things going to get back to normal?

Thallemer said the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the federal government are working to try to figure out the best approach and the timing of that for the country.

“I listened to the governor yesterday, and our governor, at least, is working with the administration to develop a plan for the state, and I do feel like our governor will make those decisions in lieu of the public health information as that continues to come out,” he said.

As of Wednesday morning, Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington said Kosciusko County has 19 confirmed cases, with eight of those patients recovered and one death. (That number increased to 20 later Wednesday.)

“We keep waiting for a surge beyond what we have, and I thought we’d see it in the last week since our last meeting, but thankfully, we haven’t,” Remington said. “I’m hoping, that if we are going to see a surge – the additional modeling for our county that I received from downstate was that we would see the peak of that surge either this week or next. With pretty heavy presence until early May, and then a tapering off, coming down the other side of the mountain side into early June.”

The Indiana State Board of Health’s (ISBH) prediction for the peak of the surge was pushed back an additional two weeks away, he said.

“It remains unclear in rural counties like ours that have not seen a tremendous number of cases whether we will see an out-of-phase surge to the statewide or national statistics. Nobody knows that issue,” Remington said.

He said he spoke to his communicable health nurse, Teresa Reed, at length Wednesday morning and he sensed some “guarded optimism” from her. “We’re not feeling a crush of new cases, obviously, as I’ve reported to you. We’re not hearing voices of ‘I’ve ran out of testing supplies,’ ‘Can’t get to a test,’” Remington said.

KCHD staff Wednesday morning distributed two pallets of personal protective equipment from the state to local long-term healthcare facilities.

Remington said he was “most guarded” in regard to those facilities and was “bracing” for a cluster of bad cases coming out of a confined setting such as a nursing home or jail.

“I hope we never see that. We have not seen that, thus far, thankfully,” Remington said, adding that the “heavy-handed suppressive measures” such as social distancing has had a “wonderful result” for the county. “I think we have not seen a horrific surge, perhaps, because we have done well on those fronts. So my message this morning is to keep it up, at least aggressively, for another couple of weeks through this month and into early May.”

He said he perhaps sensed some light at the tunnel as of Wednesday as there was no cluster of cases between last week’s press conference and Wednesday’s.

“Things won’t be back to normal in June, but things will be much different by early June, I believe, with our businesses. I’m confident of that,” Remington said.

Good News

In a little bit of “good news,” Thallemer said the Warsaw Municipal Airport on Tuesday was awarded $69,000 of CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act stimulus funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for operations and maintenance during the down time.

Also, he said they heard the FAA is going to forgive the local 5% match portion of the airport’s 2020 north/south runway rehabilitation project. Thallemer said that could save the city around $100,000.

Thallemer, Groninger and Parker thanked the community at different times during the press conference for the way it’s responded to the pandemic and stay-at-home order.

“I can’t go without thanking our community for the way that they responded. I think one of our problems is that too many people want to volunteer and that creates an issue with social distancing, but, boy, there’s no lack of collaborative spirit and willingness to give for our neighbors in this community, and I don’t think anyone should be surprised by that because that’s what we are,” Thallemer said.

Groninger said, “Just appreciate our community, how it’s came together, how people are looking for ways to serve, how they’re doing what they’re told with social distancing to try and flatten that curve. I think we’re seeing some positive signs because of that, so I just appreciate what everybody has done.”

Parker said people in the community have the right heart and spirit to take care of each other.

“We’ve seen that countless times: Making the masks, and just volunteering. Whenever there’s a need, people stepping up and helping each other. I’m just so proud to be in this community and I’m just thankful that people have that heart and spirit to take care of one another. It’s just so awesome,” he said.