Ohio's Treasurer stops in Lima to let small business and minority business owners know what the state can do to help them out.
Robert Sprague visited The Central District's Makerspace to meet with entrepreneurs to talk about what programs are available to them to take advantage of. The partners in The Central District say some local business owners need to be pointed in the right direction to help them take their next step, start, or expand their business.
“It was a joy to be able to hear the treasurer talk directly to them about access to capital, access to opportunity,” says Jerome O’Neal, Partner in The Central District. “Certainly, with what the State of Ohio is doing to make sure those businesses that are affected by COVID, those businesses that are affected by staffing challenges, get to hear the message what the State of Ohio is doing to help make their projects sustainable.”
Sprague says the Lima area is showing improvement for small businesses and his office can help them with their Linked deposit program which will help lower the interest rate business owners can pay on loans.
“I think nowadays, all the costs for small businesses are rising. It doesn’t matter if it is your fuel costs or your rent costs, everything is going up,” adds Robert Sprague, (R) Ohio’s Treasurer. “We are trying to make sure the one thing that doesn’t go up next year for small businesses is the cost of money. So, we are able to leverage our $29 and a half billion balance sheet of taxpayer money to help benefit through the financial institutions these small businesses by lowering the cost of their loans.”
Sprague says he heard a lot of good ideas from people who have and are looking to start a business, and he hopes that the talk today will give them the start to make their business a success.
