Mississippi Establishes Small Business Website for Virus Relief Grants

Mississippi has established a website where owners of small businesses can soon start applying for grants funded by a federal coronavirus pandemic relief package, Gov. Tate Reeves said.

The site – backtobusinessms.org – has rules for the program created by state legislators and approved by Reeves. Grants of $1,500 to $25,000 are available to businesses with 50 or fewer employees.

Reeves said the state was hiring a private contractor to administer the program. Although the Republican governor has said many times that he wants to get money to businesses soon, he cautioned that there could be a rush of applications in the beginning.

“There are going to be growing pains. We are starting up a program from scratch,” Reeves said.

The governor gradually eased restrictions on businesses, allowing barber shops, beauty salons, tattoo parlors and casinos to reopen and restaurants to allow dine-in services between the middle of May to the beginning of June – all with additional health regulations and limits on customers to try to mitigate the spread of the highly contagious virus. Starting June 1, all types of businesses, including movie theaters, were allowed to reopen under those rules.