Without the rush to secure money before it dried up and the constant rule changes, the latest round of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Payroll Protection Program is mostly rolling along as intended, local bank officials said.

While the original program was designed to help businesses of 500 employees or fewer keep their workers off unemployment rolls, the second round is more targeted to even smaller companies and those hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest version provides more money to restaurants and hotels. To qualify, businesses must have fewer than 300 employees and the owners must be able to show a 25% drop in revenue from any quarter of 2019 compared to the corresponding quarter in 2020.

“Our volume is about 30 percent of what it was in the first round,” said Jack Heath, president and chief operating officer of Washington Trust Bank. “Many of those companies either don’t qualify or we have a number of customers that might have qualified but they elected not to take the funding because they don’t need it.

“That’s really good news,” Heath continued. “That being said, a lot of customers in the hospitality, restaurants and hotels, are under a horrendous amount of stress and are in desperate need of the funding.”

Brendan Wiechert, director of commercial and businesses services at Spokane Teachers Credit Union, said he’s seen a similar drop in volume for applications for the latest round.

As of Monday, STCU had processed about 380 requests seeking about $13 million, or an average request of about $35,000 for the second round of the PPP.

“I think there is a perception that this round is so much more complicated,” Wiechert said. “Except for that one rule, it’s not. For the businesses that need money, they should apply. The SBA process is working.”

As of the end of January, the SBA, which before the pandemic was an obscure federal agency mostly known for delivering loans following natural disasters, had processed about 900,000 applications for the latest funding approved on Dec. 27 for a total of about $72.7 billion.

That comes after the SBA pumped more than $557 billion into the national economy during 2020.

Under the latest guidelines, the current loan-amounts averages are hovering around $82,000 across the nation, said MartinGolden, the SBA Pacific Northwest acting regional administrator.

“We’re encouraged to see approximately four out of five PPP loans this round are under $100,000, which indicates the intended, smaller businesses are benefiting from the PPP,” Golden said in a statement.

Greg Deckard, CEO and chairman of State Bank Northwest, said his institution already has processed applications that should secure about half the $48 million awarded to his clients in last year’s PPP process.

But, the new process still has plenty of headaches. Deckard said the SBA went with a new application vendor and a computer program that has new safeguards for fraud.

It’s resulted in holds on about 25 current applications from his bank.

“You get an error code, but you can’t get ahold of anybody at SBA to answer your question (about) why there is a hold on it,” Deckard said. “We have … sorely needed funding for these businesses and we can’t get through to someone who can solve the problem.”

In addition to more money for restaurants and hotels, the latest version of the PPP also provides grants to businesses that had to close, such as the Spokane Arena, theaters and roller skating rinks, Deckard said.

Some business may get more funding through the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant Program than from the PPP, he said.

“If you are personnel-heavy, the PPP is a better route,” Deckard said.

But all of the local bankers agreed that any business owner, even sole proprietors, should reach out to their lenders to see if they qualify. The cost is nothing and the reward can be great.

“It’s not going to hurt to check,” Heath said. “It’s well worth the time to explore … so that we can get the money in the hands of businesses that really need it.”