E-Rate Program Under Fire

ALA officials say the program gives students increased access to the Internet and that its successes far outweigh any criticisms being hurled by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Some 86 percent of public schools, 21 percent of private schools, and 65 percent of libraries nationwide have received e-rate funds since the program's inception. "The library community has been a huge supporter of this program," says Claudette Tennant, ALA's Internet policy specialist. "The program is a success—look at the amount of funding and the amount of improved access to the digital world. There's no way to argue against that."

An ongoing Congressional investigation into fraud and abuse within the e-rate initiative has prompted Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) to call for eliminating the federal funds altogether. Tancredo introduced legislation in March to the 108th Congress seeking to "terminate" the $2.25 billion e-rate fund, launched under the 1996 Telecommunications Act to provide up to a 90-percent discount on telecommunications and Internet services to schools and libraries nationwide.

The House Commerce Committee has yet to take action on the proposed bill, but Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) has launched an investigation into the "potential for and troubling reports of waste, fraud, and abuse" within the project. In the upper house, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, has made it a priority to "clean up" the program, says spokesman Grant Toomey, and Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is also monitoring the situation.

A January report by the Center for Public Integrity—largely based on an investigation by the Federal Communications Committee (FCC)—chronicled fraud and a lack of proper government oversight within the e-rate program, which is administered by the nonprofit Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the FCC. The program is funded through a 10-percent universal service fee on telephone bills, and companies such as IBM and Verizon rank among the top e-rate service providers.

Tennant, however, says the report rehashes existing complaints. "Some school systems have acted in bad faith or were led down the wrong path by overzealous vendors, but not a single public library has been found at fault," she says. "The audits prove that the program is policing itself [and that] they still have the ability to find the bad actors and to protect the integrity of the program."