Three Falls Church leaders supporting the business community here issued a joint memo to all businesses Saturday informing them of the business payroll relief, the “Paycheck Protection Program,” component of the $2 trillion federal legislation that passed and was signed into law late last week.

Sally Cole, executive director of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce, Bob Young, chair of the F.C. Economic Development Authority, and Becky Witsman, chief of the City’s Economic Development Office, notified the local business community that assistance in meeting payroll in the next period has been provided for in the new law and that business owners should contact their banks, through which the funds will be disbursed as soon as possible.   

They said that more details will be coming, but that records of business payrolls for the first two months of 2020 will be required. They also urged local businesses to contact anyone for whom a pending payment is due, such as a landlord, to arrange adjusted terms to take into account the current crisis.

Former head of the Small Business Administration, Karen Mills, said Friday that up to 30 percent of small businesses could fail as a result of the coronavirus out \break.

“I think that this is going to be maybe 20 percent, even 30 percent of small businesses could fail even in a good scenario,” Mills said on Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round stock market show.