Chip Taylor

Waste in the e-rate program

I'm shocked.

A federal program that has doled out more than $10 billion to help schools and libraries link to the Internet has wasted millions of dollars over its nine-year history, according to a congressional report.

The E-Rate program, managed by the Federal Communications Commission, is poorly run and "extremely vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse," said the report, approved last week by an 11 to 0 vote of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee.

The program, created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, makes available as much as $2.25 billion a year to help schools and libraries purchase discounted Internet access and telecommunications equipment. Discounts range from 20 to 90 percent.

The effort is funded by the "universal service fee" charged to telephone companies, which usually pass the fee on to consumers. The money is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, a nonprofit corporation regulated by the FCC.

...

The congressional report cited problems found in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico, more than $100 million in program money has been spent to provide broadband Internet access for 1,540 schools, but few of the school system's 610,000 students were able to use it. The committee staff found about $23.5 million worth of computer equipment, including 73,000 wireless cards, still shrink-wrapped and sitting in a warehouse.

I was shocked over a year ago. Twice.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, I guess the e-rate program is like the weather: everyone talks about it but never does anything about it.