Tim Dillon, Executive Director of the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District, updated the Kenai City Council on the state of their effort for distribution of grants to businesses in Kenai, as well as getting residents of the Kenai Peninsula back to work. The discussion took place during their Wednesday night City Council meeting.
He also said that KPEDD’s workforce development website will allow residents of the Kenai to find jobs that open up on the Kenai: “We’ve been working on a workforce project for the last year, and instead of our report being an actual paper report, we’ve decided that our report is going to be a live website that will come live in January. It will assist people on the Kenai Peninsula on making sure that if a job opens up on the Kenai Peninsula, we want to make sure that someone from the Kenai Peninsula is qualified and gets hired. So, this website is going to have a website is going to have a variety of different things on it – from all of the different jobs that are available, what training is needed, and where to get that training.”
Another loan program is also on the way: “We have a new loan program. As most of you probably know, we’ve got that small loan program where you can loan up to $25,000 for somebody for a business that has been turned down by at least two financial institutions. We’re going to have a new loan program that you’ll be able to go up to around $65,000.”
Dillon said the organization’s budget comes from grants: “Our funding – I know everybody is always interested in where we’re getting our money from – these are all grants. You may remember, this is my fifth year now. When I first got there, our total budget was in the $300,000 range. We’ve kind of changed directions on how we’re doing things. We don’t have any hand-outs, at all. Everything is based on a contract where there’s deliverables and our approved budget for this year is a little bit over a $1.1 million.”
He wrapped up his statements to the City Council by discussing AK CARES, noting that there are grants yet to be approved – funds that are not directly from the city, but rather, small business relief facilitated through KPEDD from the state: “Currently, there’s still 609 active applications for the Kenai Peninsula, to the tune of a little bit over $36 million. These are requests that have not been approved. I am working with the Commissioner’s office and with AIDEA several times a day, trying to figure out where we are in making sure that people are able to get what they need.”