Dive Brief:
- A $3 million settlement was announced last week in relation to the New York City Department of Education's alleged violations of competitive bidding rules in the FCC’s E-rate program.
- The consent decree that accompanies the settlement contains "many compliance plan requirements that could become de facto standards for future E-rate enforcement actions," the CommLaw Monitor reports.
- As a result, the NYC DOE will cancel all of its E-rate funding requests from 2011-2013, pay $3 million to resolve the conflict, file compliance reports, retain all E-rate related documents for 10 years, and appoint an E-rate Compliance Officer.
Dive Insight:
According to the CommLaw Monitor, this move by the FCC "signals a new chapter in E-rate enforcement." Ahead of this new chapter, district administrators and principals should certainly review their E-rate bids, applications, and related documents to make sure that everything is in order. Although the NYC Department of Education is a big fish, it's likely that the FCC will also crack down on smaller applicants and districts who engage in bidding violations, intentional or not.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, the charter network Concept Schools is currently under investigation for similiarly violating E-rate bidding rules.
In NYC's case, a consultant who served as project manager for NYC’s Project Connect was found guilty of overbilling the school district over four years, and was criminally charged with theft and fraud. The man in question "created a subcontracting scheme using two primary vendors associated with Project Connect to misappropriate money from the NYC DOE, without the NYC DOE’s knowledge or agreement."