The Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service might not be able to properly dispense funds supporting rural broadband as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "broadband stimulus" program, an audit of RUS by the Department of Agriculture's Office of the Inspector General for the Southwest Region warns.
In fact, an audit of RUS funding has been underway for some time, since irregularities were alleged in 2005. The problem is that RUS funds are alleged to have been disbursed in areas where broadband service already is available, rather than to projects that bring broadband to areas where there is no service.
The inspector general's audit finds that RUS has not corrected problems identified in 2005, and warns that the new "broadband stimulus" funds likewise will fail to achieve that program's objectives.
To date, irregularities have lead to wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. The USDA Rural Utilities Service has spent $1.35 billion on projects for Internet service since 2001 and of course is preparing to spend $2.5 billion or so as part of ARRA. The inspector general's report of 2005 found that RUS funds went to communities including Las Vegas and Chicago.
In fact, 77 percent of the communities that benefited from the rural broadband loans already had access to the technology, and 27 percent already had three or more Internet providers, the inspector general says.
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