Murals are painted onto boarded up businesses on Main Street in Downtown Las Vegas, Monday, April 6, 2020.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020 | 6 p.m.
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At a time when the Southern Nevada business community needed a champion like never before, Joseph Amato stepped up.
Amato, the district director of the Small Business Administration’s Nevada office, has been lauded by local business owners for helping them obtain emergency financial assistance for themselves and their employees amid the COVID-19 crisis. They say Amato has gone out of his way to make businesses aware of various types of aid, help them navigate application processes, answer their questions and advocate for additional relief from the federal government.
So when Amato says there’s a problem that is hindering businesses from obtaining aid, as he did in a recorded teleconference that was obtained by The Washington Post, people should pay attention.
Amato’s concern was that big banks have been hesitant to help businesses obtain Paycheck Protection Plan loans funded by the CARES Act, the coronavirus emergency relief package approved by lawmakers last month. He said banks “that had no problem taking billions of dollars of free money as bailout in 2008 are now the biggest banks that are resistant to helping small businesses” under the program.
As The Post noted, Amato’s candid remarks speak to frustrations over the rollout of the emergency business loans. He acknowledged that the SBA was struggling too, but put the lion’s share of the blame on major banks.
“It just comes down to … the same banks that literally took billions of dollars (of TARP assistance) …. are the ones saying the documentation isn’t clear enough for them,” he said during the teleconference, in which he spoke with business owners.
Amato also dismissed complaints by the banking industry that it’s been difficult for them to begin lending because the rules of the program have been evolving.
“So what they are saying is ‘I don’t give … a hoot about the small businesses … what I care about is whether or not I have enough paperwork.' It’s just crazy,” he said.
It’s great to see an administration appointee fighting so passionately for small businesses in times like these.
Amato is absolutely right: The big banks should be bending over backward to help businesses survive this unprecedented crisis. He also made the right call in not pointing a finger at community banks and other smaller lenders, who have been quick to come to the rescue. That’s a testament to the way those banks operate: They’re accustomed to focusing on customers first, which makes them much better than the major banks at helping business operators. The federal government should give these smaller banks far more support.
Amato has extensive on-the-ground perspective on the issue, which lends credibility to his assessment of the situation.
He’s been dealing with the economic fallout since February, when businesses in Chinatown suffered a sharp downturn amid unfounded fears about workers there being contaminated. Amato jumped up to help those businesses obtain aid, and he’s been running hard ever since.
Amato is this type of public servant: When the Sun reached out to him for help with a how-to guide for businesses wanting to apply for assistance, he urged us to publish his email address and encourage readers to contact him directly.
Since coming to the Nevada SBA office in 2017, Amato has brought the organization a long way. For the first time in a long while, the local SBA is now supported by the vast majority of small businesses in Nevada.
That’s a credit to Amato’s unqualified support and advocacy for those businesses, which has made the Nevada SBA one of few federal agencies able to boast that kind of local support.
Clearly, he knows what he’s doing. His concerns about the big banks should be heeded, and Amato deserves the support of all of us in Clark County.
