On April 26th 2012, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) released their quarterly report for the third quarter of 2012. In the report, USAC states that they have established “…a foundation of processes, systems, [and] procedures” to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, and are evaluating “additional measures” to help control improper payments to beneficiaries.
The FCC's Third Report and Order directed USAC to roll over unused funds from past funding years to increase the amount of available funding for a particular year. USAC is required to revise their estimates of available unused funds on a quarterly basis, and it was reported that USAC currently has $400 million available for rollover, an increase of $150 million from the last quarterly report.
The report states that both the Beneficiary and Contributor Compliance Audit Program (BCAP) and the Payment Quality Assurance Program (PQA) have been implemented, and USAC is currently in the process of conducting 16 audits with an additional 35 scheduled. The SLD reports that they estimate the improper payment rate for the Schools and Libraries Program to be 0.94% for a total of $21.9 million, which remains unchanged from the last Quarterly Report.
The quarterly report also highlights the number of pending applications (Forms 471) remaining for each funding year. As of March 31, 2012:
