In its quarterly report to the Federal Communications Commission, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has reported that approximately $800 million is currently available in unused funds from funding years 2001 through 2006. Based on the FCC's Third Report and Order, the FCC can direct USAC to apply unused funds increase the amount of available funding for a funding year.
USAC reported the breakdown of unused funds by year as follows:
- FY 2001 – $50 million
- FY 2002 – $50 million
- FY 2003 – $175 million
- FY 2004 – $225 million
- FY 2005 – $175 million
- FY 2006 – $125 million
The FCC has already allocated an additional $600 million in unused funds for FY 2008. The FCC may choose to allocate some or all of this newly-available $800 million to further bolster the amount of available funding for FY 2008, or it may choose to reserve this funding for FY 2009 or future years.
USAC continues to reduce potentially fundable applications from previous years. As of June 30, 2008:
- USAC does not have any potentially fundable applications from FY 1998 to FY 2000
- USAC has 1 potentially fundable applications from FY 2001,
- USAC has 2 potentially fundable applications from FY 2002,
- USAC has 7 potentially fundable applications from FY 2003,
- USAC has 61 potentially fundable applications from FY 2004,
- USAC has 197 potentially fundable applications from FY 2005,
- USAC has 295 potentially fundable applications from FY 2006,
- USAC has 696 potentially fundable applications from FY 2007
In response to an FCC Office of Inspector General Report released last fall, USAC reported to the FCC that they continue to strengthen their processes, systems and procedures to prevent and reduce the improper payments as defined by the statute. USAC has dedicated more resources for oversight, training and improving their information technology tools for data gathering.
To view Funds For Learning’s analysis of FY 2007 and FY 2008 pending requests by discount band click FY 2007 and FY 2008 analysis.
The USAC Quarterly Report can be viewed here .
