The $7.2-billion federal program to bring high-speed Internet service to more US citizens, lacks basic information and adequate safeguards to ensure that the money isn’t wasted, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Monday.
The U.S. Commerce, though NTIA and Agriculture departments, through RUS were given the funds to expand broadband availability across the country as part of February’s federal stimulus package.
The agencies have had just two months to review 2,200 applications for the first round of funding alone, reports the LA Times.
The NTIA now says it will start awarding broadband stimulus grants this December and begin funding the grants in February of next year. Their original timeline had been to fund all first-round projects by year-end.
That’s not much time to review all 2,200 applications. By comparison, the California Public Utilities Commission took four to six months to review just 54 applications in a $100-million broadband program. Under Congress’ mandate, all $7.2 billion must be distributed by Sept. 30, 2010.
The programs “present risks of waste, fraud and abuse,” the GAO said, because of the compressed timetable for distributing the money and because of inadequate data on what areas actually lack broadband service.
Program funds are intended to be spent on expanding broadband network wiring, developing public computer centers in places such as libraries and schools, and “innovative projects to stimulate demand for, and adoption of, broadband.”
To prevent waste and fraud, the GAO urged the two entities responsible for distributing the money — the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service — develop a way to review and measure the effectiveness of fund recipients beyond 2010.
