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The Federal Communications Commission announced today the release of the Federal-State Universal Service Board’s Monitoring Report on Universal Service. This report provides general information about the telephone industry that has been reported to the Federal Communications Commission through June of 2008. A portion of this report covers the Schools and Libraries Support program, known to most as the E-rate program.

The Federal Communications Commission Office of Inspector General has issued a revision to its semi-annual report to Congress which corrects data reported related to audit findings of E-rate applicants.

According to a press release issued by the US Department of Justice, a man has been sentenced to five years in prison on charges of bribery and conspiring to bribe a school official.

This week, the 32nd funding wave of Funding Year 2008 was released by the SLD. It includes $44 million in commitments to over 150 applicants across the country. This follows additional waves issued this week for Funding Years 2007 and 2005.

On December 17th the SLD released a FY 2005 funding wave committing $775,782.  This wave affected eight applicants and three service providers.  The SLD has committed over $2.1 billion in FY 2005 and still has $188 million pending.

E-rate applicants have started to receive notifications that they are to undergo attestation examinations in what's being called the "Round Three" audits. It is expected that additional applicants will be notified of audit examinations in the coming weeks and months.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that Cynthia Ayer, the Bamberg County School District (South Carolina) former technology director was sentenced for two years in prision and ordered to pay $468,496 in restitution for defrauding the E-rate program.  Ayer was convicted of submitting false information to USAC causing USAC to mail E-rate reimbursements directly to her company.   

The Federal Communications Commission Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued an initial statistical analysis of data obtained from the latest round of E-rate audits. The report finds that the E-rate program continues to be 'at risk' for erroneous or improper disbursements of discounts on services provided to applicants.

In the latest wave of funding decisions for FY 2008 issued by USAC, over $123 million has been committed to applicants throughout the country. This wave, which is the 31st for the funding year, includes decisions for 914 applicants.

The USAC Schools and Libraries Committee is recommending that all FY 2008 Priority Two funding requests at or below 85% be denied due to a lack of available funding.  The current discount threshold for FY 2008 is 88%.