County agrees to fund small business retention grants

Hays County Commissioner on Friday agreed to allocate $500,000 from the general fund to use as grants to micro-businesses who aren’t likely to recover from a six-week closure forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

They could not come to terms, however, on what businesses would be eligible, what the money could be used for and how the grants would be administered.

The agenda item for the special meeting was to declare an emergency for small business retention. It’s not the first such effort in the county — the Buda Economic Development Corporation launched the “Still Budaful” stimulus program weeks ago to assist small businesses negatively affected by the coronavirus.