The Federal Government has been pushing out trillions of dollars over the past few weeks in an effort to stabilize the U.S. economy during this turbulent time.

Watchdog groups, like the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), have been calling for real-time transparency to know where the money is going and which companies are getting it.

Now, at least one federal authority, the Federal Reserve System, has announced it will answer that call. The Fed has promised it will begin publishing the names of those corporations receiving assistance under its emergency programs on a monthly basis.

“Honestly, it was pretty incredible that the Federal Reserve agreed to this kind of disclosure,” said R.J. Cross with U.S. PIRG. “I am hoping that that level of transparency will be carried forward to all the agencies in the CARES Act.”

The Fed’s move comes amid growing concern around the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). A week ago, reports revealed at least a handful of large publicly-traded companies had received PPP loans. The fast food chain Shake Shack, with a market capitalization or value of nearly $1 billion, was one of them. Shake Shack, though, was also one of the first companies to return its PPP money, which amounted to $10 million.

However, after initial concerns over some larger companies receiving PPP loans intended for much smaller businesses, a data analytic company, FactSquared, used its resources to dig through some Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Publicly-traded companies are required to report “material events” to investors and getting millions of dollars in loan money from the federal government would be a material event. So, FactSquared, decided to go through thousands of SEC filings, and was able to compile a report that revealed far more larger companies received PPP loans than initially thought.

FactSquared found at least $900 millions in forgivable small business loans went to more that 240 public companies. For example, The Lakers basketball franchise received $5 million and one luxury hotel chain was able to treat each of its hotels as an individual business and applied for 117 loans, getting at least $40 million so far.

That luxury hotel chain, Ashford Hospitality Trust, plans to keep all the funds, according to a recent statement, while the Lakers and more than a dozen other businesses have committed to returning their PPP loan money. Combined, amongst 15 businesses that have stated they will return their PPP loan money, more than $116 million is expected to be return.

“The fact that some companies are saying ‘oops, our bad’, this gets back to the purpose of transparency and why this type of information should be released,” said Bill Frischling with FactSquared.

FactSquared was only able to find less than 1 percent of the companies that took PPP loans through the public SEC filings, but its report is now being used as a real-time example of why real-time transparency is needed.

“It doesn’t do us any good three months down the line to have found out this list of companies, that money would’ve already been spent,” said Cross. “It is because this transparency happened so quickly that we are able to course correct, and companies can give that money and the treasury can readjust its rules moving forward, so that way, this money can actually help those it was intended to help.”

The SBA has not yet agreed to release the information around all businesses that receive a PPP loan. However, the treasury department has now announced every company that got more than $2 million will be fully audited, but companies have until May 7 to return the money to avoid that.

CINCINNATI — Pastor Brian Tome was surprised in April when he learned Crossroads Community Church was eligible for a Paycheck Protection loan.

“We were going, 'wait a minute, really?' Churches are generally left out of those kind of programs,” he said.

But Tome is convinced taxpayers got plenty of value from extending a $3.6 million forgivable loan to his congregation.

Although its buildings were closed from March through September, Crossroads actually increased employment during the pandemic – from 371 jobs when it applied for its loan to 403 when it requested loan forgiveness in October. The new employees helped the church beef up its community outreach.

“When you take a look at the value churches offer the social sector, it is enormous,” Tome said. “I think that the government at least this time around recognized that in this emotional crisis, financial crisis, spiritual – it’s a crisis of every kind of category possible – churches provide a meaningful service to the communities.”

That same story played out in churches all over the country, said Matthew Manion, director of the Center for Church Management at Villanova University. It published a study in December of 169 Catholic parishes on the east coast. Eighty percent of them secured PPP loans and 72% found new ways to connect with parishioners, including online masses, virtual prayer groups and outdoor gatherings.

“It kept people employed and it kept the ministry happening,” Manion said. “The ones that really seemed to thrive were able to tap into creativity and I think the PPP loans created the space for them to say, ‘How do we rethink our roles? How do we rethink our jobs in order to be able to do them in light of this pandemic?’”

At Crossroads, Tome said the expanded outreach spilled into the broader community. Here’s a partial list of activities in which the church engaged last year:

• $1.8 million in donations to local nonprofits.
• 79,000 meals to families who live near Crossroads locations.
• 9,000 health kits to organizations that support vulnerable children and the homeless.
• More than 3,000 care kits to senior citizens.
• 27,500 homemade masks to frontline medical workers.

“Who knows the number of additional suicides that would take place, who knows the number of additional divorces that would take place, who knows how many people would be hungry if it weren’t for our church’s engagement?” Tome said. “And that’s just ours. That’s not all the churches all around the region.”

Constitutional boundaries

However laudable, those achievements do not justify giving churches special treatment to enable their use of PPP loans to fund their ministries, said Alison Gill, vice president, legal and policy, for American Atheists Inc. in Cranford, New Jersey.

“I don’t think anyone would deny that churches do amazingly good work,” Gill said. “However, that work can be done and be funded by these programs without necessarily going to religious activities by the churches.”

In a letter to the SBA and in blog posts, Gill’s group has argued that the SBA is violating the U.S. Constitution by agreeing not to enforce longstanding SBA rules that prohibited religious groups from receiving loans before last year and exempted churches from new SBA rules that restrict loans to organizations with 500 employees or less.

She also claims the new rules make the Paycheck Protection program more vulnerable to fraud. She points to examples like Daystar Television, which reportedly bought a jet within weeks of receiving a $3.9 million PPP loan in April and ASLAN International Ministry in Florida, which was named in a federal civil forfeiture complaint alleging PPP loan fraud in December.

“They are not subject to the same sort of oversight as other sorts of businesses or nonprofits,” Gill said. “They don’t have to file with the IRS ahead of time, nor do they have to file annual tax updates. So, there’s very little government oversight, and because of this they’re especially susceptible to fraud.”

Digging into the numbers

The WCPO I-Team has been looking for local evidence of fraud in all kinds of government stimulus programs since April. We didn’t find it in the $108 million in Paycheck Protection loans issued to churches and religious schools last year. We did find some evidence that religious groups in Greater Cincinnati spent PPP money more efficiently than other kinds of employers.

For every job that applicants said they were protecting with their Paycheck Protection loans, local faith-based organizations received about $7,900, according to the I-Team’s analysis of SBA data. That’s about 17% less than the $9,500 average loan amount per job for the entire universe of more than 30,000 PPP loans in the Tri-State.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story of what a PPP loan meant to places like St. Xavier High School, which got a $3.8 million loan in April with an application that reported 295 jobs would be preserved.

“We’re spending a lot of money on our program here,” said St. Xavier President Tim Reilly. “And there’s no way we wanted to compromise our program if we didn’t have to, so this loan was really a great safety net.”

But St. X did more than keep teachers employed; it also made sure that more than 100 students who live in poverty had food on the table and reliable Internet service so they could keep learning when the school building was closed.

“To me, that’s a perfect example of why faith-based organizations are an important part of the picture, because we’re doing a lot more than just paychecks,” Reilly said.

For those still worried about church and state issues, Tome offers this:

“All that money comes from taxpayers. Our staff are all taxpayers. Everybody who gives any money to Crossroads, they’re all taxpayers. And all those taxpayers would like to see things they’re a part of be healthy.”

The fine print

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Until this year, the SBA interpreted that to mean loans were not allowed for “businesses principally engaged in teaching, instructing, counseling or indoctrinating religion or religious beliefs.”

But the SBA redefined that interpretation in April, when it published new guidelines for Paycheck Protection loans:

“Because those regulations bar the participation of a class of potential recipients based solely on their religious status, SBA will decline to enforce these subsections and will propose amendments to conform those regulations to the Constitution.”

The same document made churches exempt from the so-called affiliation rule, which required most borrowers to count employees from affiliated companies when calculating whether they meet the 500-employee-limit loan eligibility. That’s why the Catholic church, which has more than 1 million employees, was able to qualify for thousands of loans with more than $1.4 billion.

“SBA will not assess, and will not permit participating lenders to assess, the reasonableness of the faith-based organization’s good-faith determination that this exception applies,” said the SBA guidelines.

Congress had a chance to address these issues last month, when it passed a new round of Paycheck Protection loans. And it sided with the SBA's interpretation with this statement in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021:

"It is the sense of Congress that the interim final rule of the Administration entitled 'Business Loan Program Temporary Changes; Paycheck Protection Program' - 85 Fed. 11 Reg. 20817 (April 15, 2020) - properly clarified the eligibility of churches and religious organizations for loans made under paragraph (36) of section 7(a) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 636(a)."

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to approve replenishing the fourth round of stimulus funds amid the spread of COVID-19.

The bill was approved by the House by a 388-5 margin. It previously passed the Senate by a voice vote, and now awaits President Donald Trump's signature.

Last week, the Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to assist small businesses with making payroll to offset the economic impact of COVID-19, ran out of funding. As it ran out of money, it was discovered that some larger business and organizations, such as Shake Shack , Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and Harvard University, were among those that received funds.

Shake Shake said earlier this week that it was unclear on the guidance on who was eligible for the funds. The burger chain announced that it would return its share of funding, and on Thursday, Ruth's Chris announced it would return $20 million.

Also, Trump said other large companies would need to pay back the money they received, and that the White House and Treasury Department would add additional guidance for a second round of funding.

The bill would add $321 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, with at least $60 billion of the PPP subsidy to guarantee loans made by smaller depository institutions, credit unions, and community financial institutions.

Another section of the bill provide would $75 billion in funding to reimburse health care providers for expenses or lost revenues that are attributable to the novel coronavirus. It also would provide $25 billion to develop, purchase, administer, process, and analyze tests for COVID-19.

The bill would provide $62 billion for salaries and expenses and for loan programs of the Small Business Administration. That amount includes $10 billion for economic injury disaster loans.

President Donald Trump will join members of the White House’s coronavirus task force for a daily news conference as the House of Representatives a debate a bill to replenish the Paycheck Protection Program.

The White House said Thursday’s news briefing will begin at 5:45 p.m. ET.

Last week, the Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to assist small businesses with making payroll to offset the economic impact of COVID-19, ran out of funding. As it ran out of money, it was discovered that some larger business and organizations, such as Shake Shack , Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and Harvard University, were among those that received funds.

Shake Shake said earlier this week that it was unclear on the guidance on who was eligible for the funds. The burger chain announced that it would return its share of funding, and on Thursday, Ruth's Chris announced it would return $20 million.

Also, Trump said other large companies would need to pay back the money they received, and that the White House and Treasury Department would add additional guidance for a second round of funding.

The bill would add $321 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, with at least $60 billion of the PPP subsidy to guarantee loans made by smaller depository institutions, credit unions, and community financial institutions.

Another section of the bill provide would $75 billion in funding to reimburse health care providers for expenses or lost revenues that are attributable to the novel coronavirus. It also would provide $25 billion to develop, purchase, administer, process, and analyze tests for COVID-19.

The bill would provide $62 billion for salaries and expenses and for loan programs of the Small Business Administration. That amount includes $10 billion for economic injury disaster loans.

In her hands, Tobie Whitman carries her pride and joy, as well as her livelihood.

“We source everything from as nearby as possible,” motioning to the bouquet in her hands.

The florist owns

Little Acre Flowers

in Washington, D.C., a small business with six employees.

Lately, business has been tough.

“I'd say about a month ago some of our event clients, who were planning weddings or bar mitzvahs, began to reach out to us and say that they were thinking about possibly having to change their plans,” Whitman said. “And that's when we thought to ourselves, ‘Oh wow, this is really going to be a big deal for our business.’”

And it has been a big deal.

Their flower orders for events –-gone. That side of the business is down 100 percent. The shop is surviving on a small number of daily flower deliveries and something else.

“We're dipping into the savings that we have to keep people on board,” Whitman said.

The federal government recently passed the $2 trillion “

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act

,” better known as the

CARES Act

. In it, it provides more than $349 billion for small businesses in the “Paycheck Protection Program.” It’s designed to help small businesses hold on to their employees.

“Billions of dollars in small business loans have already been processed through Paycheck Protection Programs,” President Donald Trump said on April 5. “So, we went out on Friday and, literally, it’s become so popular. It’s been worked with the banks. They get it to the small business.”

However, it hasn’t worked quite as smoothly as that.

Banks report a confusing lending program process, which is limiting their ability to get those emergency loans out to small businesses.

Wells Fargo announced it would no longer be accepting any more new applications, because the bank already reached the program’s $10 billion loan maximum. That prompted the Federal Reserve to announce it would now allow the bank to go beyond that amount.

On top of that, the Small Business Administration’s computer servers crashed, as banks attempted to submit those loan applications.

Back at Little Acre Flowers, Whitman said they plan to apply for the federal loan, but in the meantime, also applied for a small business grant from the city to help stay afloat.

"We're small business,” she said. “We're like a family."

All part of an effort to keep the door to Little Acre Flowers open for as long as possible – like so many other small businesses are trying to do.