The Schools and Libraries Division April 10 announced the members of its new Task Force on the Prevention of Waste, Fraud and Abuse-14 individuals who represent different segments of the E-rate stakeholder community. They include Sara Fitzgerald, vice president, communications, of Funds For Learning.
Also named to the task force were Harry Cook, BellSouth; Maureen Foley, Center City Consortium, a group of Catholic schools in Washington, DC; Wayne Hay, Westchester, NY, library system; Win Himsworth, E-rate Central; Vicki Hobbs, Rural School and Community Trust, a non-profit organization representing rural schools; Toni Pickle, Pioneer Telephone Cooperative; Gary Rawson, Mississippi Department for ITS; Ron Reynolds, California Association of Private School Organizations; Alexa Sendejo, EarthLink; Alecha Stackle, Dell Computer; Barbara Stoll, Sprint; Tony Wening, Missouri Research and Education Network; and Robert Westall, School District of Philadelphia.
The task force is scheduled to meet three times over the next few months with the goal of producing a final set of recommendations for the Universal Service Administrative Company by early summer. The task force's mandate is to review every aspect of the E-rate program where waste, fraud and abuse can occur, including the application process, application review, funding commitments and invoicing. Members will also review publicly available documents to determine what changes could be made to help prevent waste, fraud and abuse.
The SLD will be providing e-mail links to task force members for E-rate stakeholders who would like to make suggestions to them. If you wish to contact Sara Fitzgerald, click here.
