2B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2020
BUSINESS & AG LIFE
Navigating the PPP forgiveness process
hose businesses that
received Paycheck Protec-
tion Program funds (PPP)
are no doubt aware that all or a
portion of the loan is forgivable
if funds are utilized according to
program requirements.
T
GREG SMITH
EOU SBDC
The following information
comes from a webinar I partici-
pated in hosted by a Small Busi-
ness Administration lending spe-
cialist, and I want to emphasize
borrowers should always check
with their lender or CPA for spe-
cifi c answers pertaining to their
individual situation.
To begin with, borrowers will
submit an application for for-
giveness to their lender. The Pay-
check Protection Flexibility Act
extended the amount of time for
submission from eight weeks after
the date you received the proceeds
to 24 weeks. There are two dif-
ferent applications — form 3508
and form 3508 EZ. The EZ form
is considerably shorter, but not all
businesses qualify to use this.
You are eligible for the EZ
form if you:
• are a self-employed borrower
with no employees and did not
include any salaries in the calcula-
tion of your monthly payroll when
determining your eligible loan
amount
• didn’t reduce wages by more
than 25% and didn’t reduce the
number of employees or average
paid hours of employees
• weren’t able to rehire/hire
similarly qualifi ed employees
• didn’t reduce wages by
more than 25% and were unable
to operate at the same level
of activity due to government
restrictions. (i.e. from OSHA or
another similar agency)
The lender will review the
application and confi rm that
appropriate documentation has
been submitted to validate the
information; the borrower’s cer-
tifi cations are true and correct;
and your mathematical calcula-
tions are accurate. The lender has
60 days for the process to be com-
pleted and then will issue a deci-
sion to SBA.
Examples of supporting doc-
uments to be included with the
forgiveness application for pay-
roll costs include bank statements,
tax forms, receipts and cancelled
checks. For allowable non-pay-
CHICKENS
Continued from Page 1B
UC-Riverside’s Alireza
Abdoli, a data science grad-
uate student.
Abdoli loves chickens,
so he said he was excited
when Murillo asked him
to join the project — along
with biologists, entomolo-
gists and a poultry health
expert.
Abdoli designed an
algorithm to track chicken
behavior.
The fi rst algorithm he
created measured shapes.
When you shake hands
with another person, he
explained, it looks about the
same every time you do it. If
you were wearing a sensor
on your hand, the motion
would show up in a dataset
as a consistent shape.
Similarly, with chickens,
pecking looks like a recog-
nizable zigzag.
But some chicken move-
ments are complex. It’s
hard, for example, to tell
the difference between
dust bathing and preening
on a computer screen —
Photo courtesy of Amy Murillo
A chicken wears a backpack containing small sensors that
monitor their movements.
important distinctions when
measuring parasite activity.
Abdoli modifi ed his algo-
rithm to account for speed
and force.
Then, Abdoli and
Murillo inserted the sen-
sors into tiny backpacks,
which they fastened onto
chickens’ backs.
“You can imagine how
hard it was to put these
roll costs you must prove the ser-
vice or obligation was in place
prior to Feb. 15, 2020, (with bills
and invoices) and provide proof of
payment. For such things as mort-
gage interest payments, rent or
leases you will likely need to pro-
duce an amortization schedule,
lease agreements, copies of can-
celed checks, etc.
If using the 3508 form, you
will need to include the loan for-
giveness calculation form, the
PPP schedule A and documenta-
tion showing the average number
of FTE (full time employees) on
your payroll during the referenced
time periods.
Should you be required to pay
back any portion of PPP funds,
no payment will be due for 10
months. Ask your lender about
additional terms and conditions or
refer to your loan documents.
backpacks on the chickens,”
Abdoli said.
He laughed.
But after a minute of
pecking and squirming, the
chickens got used to the
packs.
When the researchers
analyzed the data, they
were excited.
Murillo said the sensors
accurately detected which
chickens had parasites.
In the long term, the
researchers say, this could
help poultry farmers accu-
rately detect parasites and
target birds with problems
before an outbreak.
But Murillo esti-
mates a commercial-scale
product won’t be avail-
able for at least a few
years. COVID-19 has
brought much research to a
“screeching halt,” Murillo
said. A real-time model is
still in progress, and the
researchers will need com-
mercial fl ocks to be part of
experiments.
“We’ve got a ways to go,
but I think the technology
does have amazing promise
for the poultry industry,”
said Murillo.
USDA announces extended deadline,
more eligible commodities for CFAP
EO Media Group staff
WASHINGTON, D.C.
— USDA announced this
week that additional com-
modities are covered by the
Coronavirus Food Assis-
tance Program in response
to public comments and
data. Additionally, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
is extending the deadline
to apply for the program
to Sept. 11, and producers
whose applications have
been approved will receive
their fi nal payments. The
extended program will give
even more farmers and
ranchers the opportunity
for assistance to help keep
operations afl oat during
these tough times.
The following additional
commodities are now eli-
gible for CFAP:
Specialty Crops — aloe
leaves, bananas, batatas,
bok choy, carambola (star
fruit), cherimoya, chervil
(french parsley), citron,
curry leaves, daikon, dates,
dill, donqua (winter melon),
dragon fruit (red pitaya),
endive, escarole, fi lberts,
frisee, horseradish, kohl-
rabi, kumquats, leeks,
mamey sapote, maple sap
(for maple syrup), mesculin
mix, microgreens, nectar-
ines, parsley, persimmons,
plantains, pomegranates,
LOSSES
Continued from Page 1B
199 seasonal and full-time
workers. Sykes Enterprises
runs call centers around
the world that offer cus-
tomer services for a variety
of companies, but closed its
call center in Milton-Free-
water in 2018.
In Union County, Boise
Cascade in Elgin lost
130 trade-related jobs,
according to the report.
Hillary Haden, repre-
senting the Oregon Fair
pummelos, pumpkins, ruta-
bagas, shallots, tangelos,
turnips/celeriac, turmeric,
upland/winter cress, water
cress, yautia/malanga and
yuca/cassava
Non-Specialty Crops and
Livestock — liquid eggs,
frozen eggs and all sheep
(only lambs and yearlings
were previously eligible)
Aquaculture — catfi sh,
crawfi sh, largemouth bass
and carp sold live as food-
fi sh, hybrid striped bass, red
drum, salmon, sturgeon,
tilapia, trout, ornamental/
tropical fi sh and recre-
ational sportfi sh
Nursery Crops and
Flowers — nursery crops
and cut fl owers
Several commodities
— green onions, pista-
chios, peppermint, spear-
mint, walnuts and water-
melons — are now eligible
for Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Sta-
bility Act funding for sales
losses. Originally, these
commodities were eligible
for payments on marketing
adjustments only. Also,
payment rates for these
commodities have been
corrected.
Additional details can
be found in the Federal
Register in the Notice of
Funding Availability and
Final Rule Correction and
at www.farmers.gov/cfap.
To ensure availability
of funding, producers with
approved applications ini-
tially received 80% of their
payments. The Farm Ser-
vice Agency will automat-
ically issue the remaining
20% of the calculated pay-
ment to eligible producers.
Going forward, producers
who apply for CFAP will
receive 100% of their total
payment, not to exceed the
payment limit, when their
applications are approved.
Producers, especially
those who have not worked
with FSA previously, are
recommended to call 877-
508-8364 to begin the
application process. An
FSA staff member can help
producers start their appli-
cation during the phone
call. Eligibility forms can
be downloaded from www.
farmers.gov/cfap. For
existing FSA customers,
these documents are likely
already on fi le.
For more information,
contact your local FSA
offi ce. Due to recent public
health concerns, Union
County FSA is open for
phone and email appoint-
ments only.
Call 541-963-4178, ext.
2, for any assistance you
may require.
Trade Campaign, said
the TAA numbers under-
count the true number of
people who lost their jobs
for trade or offshoring rea-
sons, because they depend
on someone to proactively
fi ll out an application to be
enrolled in the program,
and only certain types of
jobs qualify. However, she
said Oregon’s TAA num-
bers in the past three years
have been “particularly
concerning.”
“The most troubling
trend uncovered in our
analysis is that trade-re-
lated job loss has been on
the rise in recent years,” she
said. “Oregon experienced
a 113% increase in trade-re-
lated job loss in the past
three years compared to the
previous three years.”
She said those losses
have been felt in indus-
tries from steel to
semiconductors.
The report from the
Trade Justice Education
fund criticized the 2017 Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act for pro-
viding incentive for com-
panies to move jobs over-
seas by allowing them to
pay a much lower corpo-
rate tax rate on profi ts made
overseas than they do on
profi ts made at home. It
also criticized the trade deal
with China that the United
States signed in January for
“neglecting to even men-
tion, let alone address, the
abysmal labor rights, forced
labor, weak environmental
standards and related causes
of job offshoring to China,”
and instead helping compa-
nies feel safer moving jobs
overseas by increasing pro-
tections for their intellectual
property.
File photo by Ben Lonergan/EO Media Group
Watermelons are among the commodities now eligible for
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stability Act fund-
ing for sales losses.
While there is justifi able angst
surrounding the forgiveness pro-
cess, SBA emphasizes simply
approaching it with honesty and
integrity.
With careful record keeping
and aligning the use of funds with
allowable expenses, you should
have little diffi culty being able to
produce necessary documentation
for forgiveness.
Rely on the expertise of your
CPA and always reach out to
your lender fi rst as they are the
ones who will be recommending
to SBA whether the loan is for-
givable, either in whole or in
part.
About the Author
Greg Smith is the director
of the Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity Small Business Development
Center, La Grande.
Small-business & Ag
HAPPENINGS
Union County FSA open by appointment
LA GRANDE — The Union County Farm Service
Agency is open for phone and email appointments only.
To arrange an appointment or for more information, call
541-963-4178, ext. 2.
Registration open for grant proposal
blueprint course
LA GRANDE — The Union County Chamber of
Commerce in a newsletter announced an upcoming
eight-week online grant proposal course offered by
the Nonprofi t Association of Oregon. “The Ultimate
Grant Proposal Blueprint Course: Your Step-by-Step
Roadmap and Built-It-Yourself Toolkit for Crafting an
A+ Grant Proposal” will run Aug. 24 to Oct. 26. The
comprehensive, on-your-own-schedule video-based
course is led by Maryn Boess from GrantsMagic U, a
veteran grant writer and grant consultant.
The course includes eight weekly video training
sessions of about two hours each, which you can view
any time, on your own schedule and as often as you
like; a detailed session-by-session printable workbook
and resource guide to follow along with as you watch
the videos; live group Q&A sessions with Maryn; and
ongoing personal support, via an “Ask Anything” Face-
book community page.
The cost is $197 for NAO members and $297 for
nonmembers. Registration is through the GrantsMagic
U website: u.grantsmagic.org. Contact support@
grantsmagic.org for registration support.
New fund launches to assist Oregon
agricultural workers who need
to self-quarantine
PORTLAND — A new source of fi nancial assis-
tance for agricultural workers who are self-quarantining
to slow the spread of COVID-19 — the Oregon Worker
Quarantine Fund — will provide up to two weeks of
fi nancial relief to agricultural workers age 18 and older,
regardless of federal immigration status. The Quaran-
tine Fund is administered by the Oregon Worker Relief
Coalition, working in collaboration with the State of
Oregon and the Governor’s Offi ce.
“When people working on farms or in food pro-
cessing plants are exposed to COVID-19, they have few
options to prevent the virus from spreading besides
giving up their paycheck,” Ramon Valdez, director of
Strategic Initiatives and Relationships at Innovation
Law Lab, said in a press release. “The Quarantine Fund
will help us contain this pandemic by taking the fi nan-
cial stress off of workers who keep Oregonians fed and
agricultural businesses running.”
Most agricultural workers report they cannot afford
to take two weeks off to quarantine if they were in con-
tact with COVID-19. Food packing and agriculture
worksites are overrepresented in workplace outbreaks
tracked by the Oregon Health Authority.
Agricultural workers can apply for relief through
local community-based organizations. Such organi-
zations in Eastern Oregon are Oregon Human Devel-
opment Corporation and EUVALCREE. Additional
details about the Oregon Worker Quarantine Funding,
including eligibility and application process, are avail-
able at bit.ly/q-fund and bit.ly/fondo-cuarentena.
Try the SHIP TO STORE feature at millershomecenter.com
3815 Pocahontas Road, Baker City 541-523-6404
3109 May Lane, La Grande 541-963-3113