The Benton Foundation, together with EducationSuperHighway, released a new report entitled “Improving the Administration of E-Rate: Ensuring All Schoolchildren Get the High-Speed Broadband Connections They Need.” The report, while acknowledging progress achieved since the FCC’s E-rate Modernization Orders in 2014, is highly critical of USAC-administered practices that have led to numerous delays and denials of broadband special construction projects.
As set forth in the report’s Executive Summary, and discussed in more depth in the latter sections, the report chides USAC for continuing to:
- Delay and deny special construction and other applications through the use of a cost model that has neither been approved for use by USAC, nor was subject to any form of public-comment process to test its suitability for the E-rate program;
- Reject applications for failure to satisfy questions that are confusing and opaque but that, in any event, have not received approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (“PRA”) from the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”); and
- Invoke the so-called “cardinal change rule” to force denial or re-institution of bidding processes without fair notice or appropriate guidance.
We agree that the review of special construction applications has been unduly burdened by overly detailed questionnaires and an unexplained cost model, but we question the fairness of placing all the blame on USAC. Although USAC is the public face of the E-rate program, it is only the administrator. Rather, it is the FCC who sets policy and who reviews and approves USAC’s PIA procedures.* We nevertheless applaud the Benton Foundation and EducationSuperHighway for turning a spotlight on these competitive bidding and application issues.