The state Bond Commission next week will weigh $7 million in funding requests for minority business assistance and loan programs.
According to the meeting agenda released Wednesday morning, Hartford-based nonprofit lender HEDCO Inc. could receive a $5 million grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development’s Small Business Express (EXP) program.
That money would replenish HEDCO’s minority business revolving loan fund, established under a 2016 state law, which provides term loans and lines of credit as high as $100,000 to small minority-owned businesses who meet certain other criteria. Â
HEDCO is also in line for a second grant of $1 million, which it would use for a program that provides assistance and loans to minority contractors bidding on construction jobs.
Finally, the Bond Commission agenda includes another $1 million in EXP funds to be used by the state’s Minority Business Initiative Advisory Board, which lawmakers created in 2017 to advise DECD on how to assist minority-owned companies.
