Texas Schools Leaving Tens Of Millions Of Federal Dollars Unclaimed

by, Peter Partheymuller

FCC’s E-rate program offers tech funding that often goes unclaimed

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) offers discounted rates to schools, school districts and libraries to enable them to improve Internet access to people throughout the entire country. The discounts vary depending on the need of a particular applicant, but they range from 20 percent to 90 percent. The funding can be applied to multiple forms of educational technology from infrastructure like fiber-optic cables to internal connections, basic maintenance and managed broadband services.

The Schools and Libraries Program, typically referred to as the E-rate program, was created as a part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The program was intended to provide universal telecommunications service in general and increased access to the Internet in particular.

The FCC has capped annual funding at $3.9 billion, but many eligible applicants leave tens of millions of dollars in unclaimed e-Rate funding. Gary Rawson (pictured) is the federal programs coordinator for Mississippi’s Department of Information Technology Services. He speaks often to state information technology (IT) directors about the unclaimed funding remaining in the E-rate program.

For instance, at an April meeting in Wisconsin, Rawson noted that more than 10 percent of the money awarded to schools and libraries in nine Midwestern states went unclaimed. That amounted to nearly $40 million. Rawson was in New York last week for another conference of IT directors and explained that schools and libraries in 10 Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states did not claim at least $73 million, a figure that amounts to almost a quarter of what those states were awarded by the E-rate program.

There are varying reasons for the unclaimed e-Rate funding. Sometimes, a project is planned and grants are requested, only for the project to be scrapped at a later date. Other times, the issue is that a form was filled out incorrectly or information has been lost in bureaucratic mix-ups. Rawson recommends state IT departments appoint one person to serve as a sort of state E-rate coordinator, someone who can serve as a central source of information for both the FCC and for individual schools and districts. That essentially is the job Rawson has for the state of Mississippi. Oftentimes, those entities aren’t equipped to follow through the process of obtaining federal funding, Rawson said.

“Are they qualified to design networks or do procurements? Some are, some are not,” Rawson said. “That can lead to dirty procurements and a loss of funding. This is where the state can step up and help. E-Rate is not forgiving, and the calendar is not either.”

This article originally published on Strategic Partnerships Inc.