SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Applicants were struggling to apply for financial relief when Seminole County’s small business CARES Act portal opened for the first time Wednesday.
The application opened at 10 a.m. with more than 700 applicants trying to submit their applications at the same time, the county posted in a tweet.
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As of 12:30 p.m., the application portal was at a standstill and was overwhelmed around 11 a.m., according to the county.
700+ applicants have logged in at once to apply for Seminole CARES https://t.co/AwGE0ehKis Grants, and as a result, the application portal is at a stand-still. Seminole County will continue to post hourly updates with respect to portal status.
— Seminole County, FL (@seminolecounty) August 19, 2020
On its CARES Act portal website, Seminole County also addressed the issue asking applicants to be patient.
“We understand many of you are having difficulty accessing the Portal due to overwhelming response,” the website reads. “The Board of County Commissioners understands how critical this funding is to your business and is committed to ensuring that eligible recipients get the assistance they need.”
Seminole County leaders say its Small Business Grant Hotline has been overwhelmed with calls as well, asking applicants to please hold off from dialing in so they can work out any technical difficulties to get the portal back up and running.
The portal was also missing zip codes for unincorporated areas of the county including 32751, 32703 and 32792. Those have now been added by the contractor that build the portal, according to the county.
If approved, businesses could receive up to $15,000 in grant funding. Grants will be awarded based on the number of employees a business has.
As of Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. the small business application portal had received 461 complete applications and more than 1,300 were started, an additional 650 small businesses had finished applying through the third section of the application.
Individual grants for families and households will open Aug. 26.