{"id":422,"date":"2014-02-02T23:19:54","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T06:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=422"},"modified":"2017-01-04T12:14:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T19:14:17","slug":"the-mess-we-are-in-erate-ien-ena-usac-and-the-idaho-taxpayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=422","title":{"rendered":"The Mess we are in: eRate, IEN, ENA, USAC and the Idaho Taxpayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"teresalunajpg-f0bc882a6af90fcc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This week in JFAC we heard from Department of Administration Director Teresa Luna that we need $7 million to keep our schools connected to the internet. She is also asking for another $7 million for 2015. She is asking Idaho taxpayers to pay for something that previously has been paid by a telephone tax. She did her best to explain this situation, but honestly it wasn\u2019t clear at the time to me how we got here, but I really wasn\u2019t too surprised, since when I read a Supreme Court decision last spring I got concerned. It is a complicated story with many acronyms so let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n

Last March Betsy wrote<\/a> about an Idaho Supreme Court decision<\/a>. This goes back to before I was even running for office, 2009 when players were vying for a state wide contract to get broadband to schools. The Court said the contract had been awarded incorrectly and should be set aside, \u201cfor further proceedings\u201d. I wondered quite a bit about the concurring judges reference to the charges not filed, but I was mainly worried about what this meant to Idaho taxpayers.<\/p>\n

How does payment for broadband to the schools work? If you get lost or confused, click on a link for further reading. Here come the acronyms. On your phone bill you will see a small tax. This is collected by the FCC<\/a> and administered by USAC<\/a>. Newspaper reporters, even Director Luna called this “federal money” but it actually isn’t, the initials make one think of Uncle Sam, but it is the Universal Services Administration Company. Schools and libraries can apply to USAC for E-Rate<\/a> payments for approved services. The application is awarded based on the cost of broadband services and the percent of free and reduced lunch<\/a> students in the district. In Idaho this can range from 50% to 95% eligible, but the state average is about 75%, a measure of our poverty. Schools can receive E-Rate money directly or have it sent to a service provider. Before the legislature made Idaho Education Network (IEN) \u00a0a law<\/a>, many schools were getting the money and paying local service providers, but with IEN, the plan was to develop a statewide network and have the contractor receive the E-Rate payments directly; thus the contract in 2009 between Idaho Department of Administration, Qwest and ENA<\/a>.\u00a0 Syringa<\/a> bid on the contract but got pushed out, even though they had the lowest bid and were an Idaho company; thus the lawsuit<\/a> that led to the March Supreme Court decision. ENA has been collecting the E-Rate dollars from USAC up until the payments were shut off in May of 2013, after the Idaho Supreme Court decision.<\/p>\n

By the way, ENA was also awarded the multi-year wireless contract<\/a> for grade schools this last summer by Superintendent Tom Luna (brother of Teresa Luna) over competing and lower bidding Idaho companies.<\/p>\n

As best I can tell from 2009 to 2012 ENA has received about $7 million from USAC in E-Rate payments. So far this year they have not received about $7M, after the payments were held. \u00a0If the Supreme Court decision is upheld and the contract is invalid, I am afraid the state will need to reimburse all the E-Rate payments sent to ENA. I can respect USAC being prudent about payments since they are under scrutiny<\/a> themselves.<\/p>\n

I hope the citizens of Idaho can get some clarity on this mess. I am working on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in JFAC we heard from Department of Administration Director Teresa Luna that we need $7 million to keep our schools connected to the internet. She is also asking for another $7 million for 2015. She is asking Idaho … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}