Letter to Isabel Guzman, Small Business Administration - Lesko Calls out SBA for Poor Handling of Shuttered Venue Assistance Program

Letter

Dear Administrator Guzman,

I write today to express serious concern regarding the extremely slow pace and apparent mismanagement of the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant (SVOG) program, a program designed to help venue operators that have been severely impacted by COVID-19 and government mandated shutdowns.

The implementation of the SVOG program, which I voted for alongside 358 of my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, has been simply unacceptable. Despite the bill authorizing the SVOG program being signed into law in December 2020, venue operators were forced to wait over three months before the SBA opened applications for the program. These same venue operators were then forced to wait an additional three weeks for your agency to fix and relaunch the application portal for interested business and organizations.

I am extremely disappointed to recently hear that of the 14,000 applications from business and organizations, only 90 have been approved. I am further disappointed to hear that nearly two-thirds of all applications have yet to be reviewed by your SBA's Office of Disaster Assistance. I have heard from business and organizations that have been patiently waiting for months for their much-needed aid that simply cannot afford any more delays.

Again, I reiterate my extreme disappointment with your agency's apparent neglect of this important program. On behalf of the Arizona businesses and organizations that have applied for this aid, I demand that you and your staff at the SBA's Office of Disaster Assistance to immediately place this program at a higher priority and provide me with an update with the changes you have made to ensure that the applications are reviewed in a more timely manner.

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