What Centre County businesses received COVID-19 aid, and how much did they get? Here’s a closer look

More than 1,400 Centre County businesses received a combined total of more than $135 million in funding from the Paycheck Protection Program, based on data released Monday by the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department.

Exact numbers are difficult to come by since more than 140,000 businesses in Pennsylvania received the loans, which were part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, the major coronavirus relief package passed by Congress in the spring. But the Centre Daily Times combed through several databases, gleaning information involving businesses from every listed area in the county with a population above 1,000.

Among the findings? Four businesses received between $5 million and $10 million — AccuWeather, Best Line and Minitab in State College; Restek in Bellefonte — while 24 more received at least $1 million. There are several ways the loan can be forgiven but, essentially, borrowers won’t have to repay the loans if they’re used toward payroll.

According to data the businesses provided to the government, AccuWeather’s loan was able to support the most jobs (462), followed closely by Restek (422). Overall, more than 15,000 jobs in the county were reportedly supported in some way by the loans.

“In our case, the PPP loan worked as it was intended,” AccuWeather spokesperson Rhonda Seaton said in a written statement. “Beyond that, as a non-public company, we do not disclose specific details.”

Added Restek CEO Bryan Wolcott: “The loan allowed us to increase the safety of our employees onsite and continue serving our customers — some of which use our chromatography equipment to provide life-sustaining and essential services.”

The smallest loan taken in the county was $334 from a self-employed individual in Bellefonte. The State College Spikes, which technically list their address as University Park so it’s not reflected in the tables below, received between $150,000 and $350,000.

Monday’s release is the largest disclosure yet of such funds. However, business names were not released for those receiving less than $150,000 — and those receiving more than $150,000 did not have exact loan amounts listed.

Based on public data, here’s what we found:

Businesses receiving more than $1M

Businesses receiving $150K to $1M

For the sake of brevity, we did not name each business in this table to provide an overview — but you can find all the names of these businesses in the file attached below the table.

Because the amount of each loan is given a range, we also reflected that in the below table.

Businesses receiving less than $150K

Because business names were not listed in this case and, due to the sheer volume, we broke it up by area. Please note that the total jobs supported could also be off, as most — but not all — businesses provided said data.

Also, note that two errors were found in State College and Bellefonte, where the towns and ZIP codes did not match. That could impact the total funding numbers for the two areas by up to $190,000. (We kept said businesses with the listed towns.) Likewise, CNBC reported that companies nationwide are reporting some errors with the database, such as funding amounts being off.

Matt Hymowitz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published July 8, 2020 at 1:28 PM.

Josh Moyer

Centre Daily Times

Josh Moyer earned his B.A. in journalism from Penn State and his M.S. from Columbia. He’s been involved in sports and news writing for more than 20 years. He counts the best athlete he’s ever seen as Tecmo Super Bowl’s Bo Jackson.