The House Commerce Committee wants to know why the Chicago Public...
The House Commerce Committee wants to know why the Chicago Public School (CPS) system has warehoused $5 million of computer and telecom equipment bought with E-rate funds. In a Jan. 15 letter to CPS, the House Commerce Oversight Subcommittee…
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asked for documents on THE use of E-rate funds and details on why the CPS bought and stockpiled the gear. It said SBC had bought the equipment for CPS with E-rate money. Subcommittee investigators recently traveled to Chicago and discovered the unused equipment. “It’s troublesome to us that $5 million worth of equipment is sitting unused in a warehouse gathering dust,” House Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said. “I'm sure the ratepayers would like to have that money back. The goal of our investigation is to determine if incidents like this are isolated or if there are others.” The Committee has been investigating E-rate for several months and has asked the General Accounting Office to gather E-rate data. SBC said it bought the equipment for a CPS local area network (LAN), but wasn’t able to install it by the end of the year in which it was purchased, a violation of e-rate rules. SBC said it was in discussions with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to determine how to refund the money.