Suspended Public Safety BTOP Grantees Still Struggle and Fear Waste, Q3 Reports Show

The Commerce Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) questioned the methods of overseeing grantees. They don’t “provide sufficient information to determine if NTIA’s review was thorough and effective” with its sustainable broadband adoption and public computing center grants, it said in a September semiannual report to Congress (http://xrl.us/bn4y4w) released in the last week. The report also criticized “two internal control vulnerabilities with respect to access to the Treasury Automated Standard Application for Payment (ASAP) system to make cash drawdowns” and noted “32 percent of our sample of grantees did not record all of their match amounts in their financial records.” Many grantees failed to comply with their grants’ proportionality clauses, OIG said, which identified the seven public safety grantees as a challenge within weeks of their suspension. The Commerce Department is selecting a contractor to perform audits on 110 BTOP grantees starting in January (CD Nov 26 p6).

"NTIA continues to vigorously monitor progress reports to resolve any issues as expeditiously as possible,” an NTIA spokeswoman said. NTIA carries out its 2012 BTOP monitoring and assessment plan daily (http://xrl.us/bn4yx7) and “proactively engages” grantees, it told Congress in September (http://xrl.us/bnw76m). Balhoff and Williams Managing Partner Michael Balhoff pointed to “waste, fraud, abuse questions” about the program as well as overbuilding concerns in a November presentation to state regulators in Baltimore (http://xrl.us/bn4y3e). NTIA said it has resolved 97 percent of overbuilds in its September report.

Suspended grantees’ Q3 reports show frustration and concern over wasted money. The state of Mississippi described great impact from its grant suspension and “will likely incur costs associated with the remobilization of crews necessary to restart the deployment of the LTE network,” it said (http://xrl.us/bn4s9n). “Additional state funds will also be expended for tower lease costs associated with the additional antenna loading.” It will “incur costs for LTE antennas hanging on” the project’s towers as well as on leased ones, in addition to “eNodeB equipment sitting in shelters, LTE antennas housed in warehouses, etc.,” Mississippi said. A complete suspension would cause “additional financial losses” due to how it would impact a pricing arrangement with a vendor, the state said. It’s installing microwave backhaul for 20 LTE links this quarter, and the only direct LTE work will be “processing of invoices” for past labor, Mississippi said.

These seven suspended grantees represent $382 million in BTOP funding, as the Early Builders Advisory Council of 21 700 MHz waiver recipients said in mid-November, petitioning NTIA to kickstart them as FirstNet pilot programs (http://xrl.us/bn4te8). “NTIA staff and FirstNet Board members will be meeting individually with each affected grantee in the weeks ahead to discuss their projects,” a spokeswoman told us. “NTIA is committed to protecting taxpayer funds from being wasted, and to ensuring that we're spending money on equipment that can and will be used in the nationwide public safety broadband network."

"The impact of the partial suspension is expected to have an increased effect on the program as time continues due to the uncertainty that it creates,” Motorola Solutions said in its report on the Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications System, a planned San Francisco public safety network (http://xrl.us/bn4s62). BayRICS will meet with the sub-group of FirstNet directors for review Dec. 18, Interim General Manager Barry Fraser said. The project is trying to ensure the project’s “viability” post-suspension and supports talks between the project authority and potential backhaul providers and continues site zoning and permitting with local jurisdictions. Many site agreements will be “subject to renegotiation after FirstNet discloses its detailed plan,” it added. The city of Charlotte grantee did not file a third-quarter report but previously complained of the same frustrations and challenges of what’s now a six-month suspension (CD July 19 p4). The grantee did submit a third-quarter report to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act officials, posted in November. Without the ability to execute its network, Charlotte has assessed the suspension’s impact on BTOP vendor contracts and on project cost analysis, prepared drafts of “go forward” business plans and options as well as a draft of an FCC special temporary authority (STA) request, assessed its user base inventory and talked with wireless device vendors on different pricing models, the Q3 update said (http://xrl.us/bn4ted).

Other grantees struggled for contingencies amid confusion. The New Jersey Treasury Department didn’t want to suffer suspension delays and decided to “recast” its BTOP grant, it said (http://xrl.us/bn4s79): “The revised project would not actually deploy an LTE network; instead, it would prepare government-owned sites statewide to accept the future nationwide network.” The project has a new budget and is incorporating NTIA comments now, it said. The LTE suspension “impeded the network design portion,” it said. The New Mexico Department of Information Technology describes the suspension of several LTE activities and the purchase of LTE equipment but doesn’t elaborate on the challenges or uncertainty (http://xrl.us/bn4ymy). The Adams County Communications Center of Colorado faced slower progress in 2012’s third quarter, as it reassessed and focused on broadband links that could be used whether the public safety LTE aspect continues or not, it said (http://xrl.us/bn4tah). The center doesn’t know what equipment to buy now, it said. The NTIA suspension “came at a critical juncture in the ADCOM 911 project,” the report said, explaining it purchased most of the LTE equipment prior to suspension and now has all of it sitting there. The center’s attitude is “cautious” but “hopeful the FCC will grant a temporary STA to deploy additional LTE sites within the area, according to the original plan,” which will require some extra money for restarting the project, it said. The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System Authority halted all procurement processes but has crafted new requests for proposals, one for a new land mobile radio system and another for a new LTE system still “in draft mode, pending FirstNet’s determination of how the BTOP projects can support the development of the nationwide public safety broadband network,” according to the report (http://xrl.us/bn4n2v). It’s been working with legal counsel to plan for 255 sites but described “no significant project accomplishments” this quarter.