On August 1, 2011, SECA (the State E-rate Coordinators Alliance) filed an ex parte with the Federal Communications Commission regarding “Black Hole applications.” Black Hole applications, SECA explains, are E-rate applications which remain in a pending state for an extended period of time. The filing includes an appendix of schools and libraries whose applications have been pending from Funding Year 2008 or before.
In its ex parte, SECA proposes a “bill of rights” for E-rate stakeholders, which would provide, among other items, the right to “expect timely decisions on funding requests.” The filing also calls for increased transparency on the part of the program administrator, stating that “the longer a decision is pending, the more status update information should be made available to the affected parties.”
SECA’s filing outlines additional recommendations to the FCC, including revisions to the Code 9 “whistleblower” process and recovery of previously disbursed funds in cases where no criminal intent is discovered.
