CEDC Loan Committee

1. 0:05Good morning everyone. I'll call the meeting to order. This is the meeting uh for the loan committee of the Columbia Economic Development Corporation. And uh thank you all for being here. Um first on the agenda is the uh review and action on minutes of the July 12th meeting of the loan committee. Any questions, additions?
2. 0:31Motion to approve.
3. 0:34Second. All in favor? I.
4. 0:36Anyone oppose? No.
5. 0:38Uh, next topic is portfolio dashboard. Martha.
6. 0:42Uh, Jim, with your permission, I'd like to present the loan request first and then come back to the dashboard.
7. 0:46Sounds good. On to the A4 Flora loan request.
8. 0:51Good morning. So, M4 Flora located in Green County, specifically Athens, uh, retail florist with a gift shop, their request of us, $10,000 that we would spread across 36 months at 7.75% that monthly payment 31221. Purpose of the loan, working capital and our collateral being a lean on business assets and of course the personal guarantee of the principal. This is Ama Flora. I'll remind everyone that we are authorized to uh lend SBA U monies not only in Columbia County but in Green County as well. Uh this one is based in Advent
9. 1:31and we're happy to get a loan in Green County and this was a referral from Bank of Green County.
10. 1:36Mhm.
11. 1:36And it's for 10,000.
12. 1:38Correct.
13. 1:42Questions or comments on the application? I saw she just uh signed a lease. Yes. Is that And is she there and open now? I don't think she's open till October 1st.
14. 1:56I think she opens in October.
15. 1:57She's already doing events though. She has a following. She used to work at Flower Crow.
16. 2:02Right. Right. So, she she doesn't necessarily need the retail space because she's working with clients outside of retail space. But then she's also opening a retail shop.
17. 2:12Yes. I'm just asking because we have a floral designer in Germantown who rented a retail space in one of the very few that we have and then after a year or two decided that she did not need the retail space and only uses it for appointments. So, we have a retail shop that basically is closed all the time. So, I was just wondering, you know, is she planning on being there?
18. 2:37She is. Yes, that's great because it helps the town. It does have a floral shop. Any questions? Okay. Is there a motion to approve?
19. 2:51Yeah. Motion to approve. Second.
20. 2:53All in favor?
21. 2:54I. Anyone oppose? The loan is approved.
22. 2:59Thank you.
23. 3:04Go back to the portfolio dashboard. And actually before we do that, I think all of you have in front of you a loan report.
24. 3:13Yep. So this was on the letterhead. Um I presented this last year at the end of the year year-to-date numbers. So we thought we'd get a little bit ahead of that. So this is through September 15th. 27 loans serving 23 businesses, just under $600,000. And we've had 12 loans serving eight businesses that were paid in full this year. uh four through term and then four paid early.
25. 3:41And this is just really sort of an FYI. Um the loans that paid off early, ACW Milwork, we loaned well over $100,000 to that business and they've closed the business, but they uh have kept us a prize throughout this process. Uh they've been selling off machinery and they repaid two of their three loans thus far, totaling over $50,000. Uh there's one outstanding loan that I think is what do you know the balance?
26. 4:10I don't, but it's not a lot.
27. 4:11It's not a lot and and we feel confident that they will pay that loan as well. Uh they have a contract on the building. Uh they plan to sell it and um we don't have any information on the buyer, but we hope to as soon as they close. Uh the Cascades Cafe, they they paid off early. Wild Hudson sold their business. Verdigree Tea closed and uh they all paid and paid on time. I do think that all of these were at 3.75 uh percent. So, we're not sad to see those loans drop off, but um you know, we we have money to lend obviously.
28. 4:51And then uh next the portfolio dashboard you have that in your packet but I also passed out a PDF that we generated right on um downhole our loan software management program and I thought it was easier to really understand the situation. Um if you flip it over you'll see the two loans that are seriously in the rears and we've discussed those at length. Um one is Hudson Cruises and Andy I don't think there's anything we need to do regarding that loan
29. 5:28at this point.
30. 5:29The other one is 7-Eleven County Route 3 and Andy we have not been in contact with that client. Do you think there's any in fact the last letter that we sent them the last demand letter they never signed for it came back so we haven't taken any steps and I I'm uh I'm just curious if you think there's something we should be doing on that one.
31. 5:49I mean it might make sense to try to reach out to them just see what their intent is. Yeah. You know
32. 5:54the the property is listed for sale but it has been for quite some time.
33. 5:59What's the nature of that business? It's a restaurant.
34. 6:03But what I really wanted you to see because this is where I think things have changed. Uh when we print on the dashboard, we don't show the uh businesses that are within 30 days. And that's where we've been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to collect because once they are 30 days past due, oftentimes they slip into the 60-day category. And um it's troubling. I have no uh answers as to why this is occurring. I mean we can all guess but we are spending a lot of time on collections.
35. 6:39Certainly if anyone wanted to discuss any of this these businesses in detail, we could go into executive session and do that. But some of them in that 30-day category are regular payers and they just happen to pay. They've set up a schedule which is after their due date, so they show up, but we get a check from them every month and we're not concerned about those. But it does seem that every month there's one new one who has missed their pay date and we reach out to them and oftenimes we get a check, but sometimes the check takes two weeks and then they're slipping into that 60-day category. Um, and there's one in particular that I want to call your attention to in that second category down, you know, uh, that shows periods missed one.
36. 7:28One, two, three. The third one down has not made a single payment. We have called him. We have sent a demand letter. Steve has left a message for him. The second call I made to him, he hung up as soon as I identified myself. And we're certainly concerned about that one.
37. 7:55Not a way to treat your lender.
38. 7:57Yes. And that has honestly never happened to me in the 20 years I've been making loans. Um the individual right below him had a death in the family, so we haven't been pushing too hard. all of the others we have reached out to and um we're hopeful that we're going to receive a check. One thing I thought was interesting when we had uh Dan Rickman here from the SBA office in Syracuse, he reviewed our loan files uh as they do annually. He talked about the EIDL loans, the outstanding emergency loans that businesses, most businesses qualified for during CO.
39. 8:34He said there are a significant number that are in default. They made four million just over four million loans in the country. And we know for a fact that some of these small businesses have hundreds of thousands in EIDL loans outstanding. And it's a 3.75% interest rate with which is reasonable and a 30-year term, which is very reasonable. Uh but he said they're seeing more and more go into default.
40. 9:06So, I'm letting the committee know that we're working on this, working diligently. Uh, but it does seem that we're spending more time and and I think, you know, the loan committee was well aware the more loans we make, the more the more work we're going to be doing in collection.
41. 9:26Well, we commend your efforts. I I think you're focusing on the right uh time period. uh as to uh when to try to uh stop bleeding in a lot of these cases and uh let's hope we continue to be successful.
42. 9:45Does anyone else have a sense you know of how small businesses are doing? I guess it's
43. 9:52I think a lot of people are struggling.
44. 9:53Do you?
45. 9:55Yeah. just I mean with the restaurants and food service you hear the same um thing about having a difficulty finding workers and then small businesses can only grow as much as they can as we talk about here even with committee so I see some businesses that have the potential to do more volume but they don't have enough workers so they keep it small and the owner is one of the employees who's doing the work. So with the food service, right? So I feel like that is a ongoing issue that seemed to pop up during co for some reason.
46. 10:33People can't find but we heard Reef saying that he can't find a he's got a good salary for a teller, a full-time teller, and he can't find anyone. So maybe there's a workforce issue, but then we could just blame it on housing, too. Same thing we talk about every question.
47. 11:00Yeah.
48. 11:00And that was one of the issues with ACW as well, finding uh skilled workers.
49. 11:08Steve, your numbers, guy, what percentage are we up of loans that are missing payments?
50. 11:15Do you have that kind of stat?
51. 11:16I don't, but I think it has grown a little bit over the past year. Mhm.
52. 11:21I mean, this this the first time ad reports made it to two pages.
53. 11:24Yeah.
54. 11:29And what we're seeing in the categories is just the one who missed one, two, three. So really the top
55. 11:35represents all of them and then the subcategories break it down into the number of mispayments.
56. 11:41Yeah.
57. 11:44This is very helpful. that uh put everything in the context
58. 11:49and some of them are in very close contact with us. I mean there's one you'll see near the bottom. She's 70 cents in a rears. She made a a payment and just the wrong check amount. Uh but she is behind and um has let us know you know what's going on. We have the ability to move that loan out of the SBA category if she gets further in rears.
59. 12:12Uh but right now she feels confident she'll be able to make a payment by the end of the month.
60. 12:19Thank you for keeping us posted.
61. 12:20Yeah, absolutely.
62. 12:23Anything else uh from the staff?
63. 12:26We have to approve the dashboard.
64. 12:28Yes, we do. Thank you.
65. 12:29Okay. I made a motion to all second.
66. 12:32All in favor? I
67. 12:33Any opposed? Motion is carried. The dashboard is approved.
68. 12:39Thank you everyone.
69. 12:40That's all we have. That's all we've had.
70. 12:43The light heavy copper. Hopefully we'll have more loans next month.

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