To increase connectivity in unserved and underserved areas in Kansas in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kansas Department of Commerce (Commerce) and other stakeholders developed the Connectivity Emergency Response Grants program in 2020. The program received $50 million in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Commerce awarded about $48.5 million of that funding in connectivity grants to the internet service providers and Kansas communities that applied. 66 grants went to 39 entities across seven regions of Kansas. South Central Kansas received about $14 million. Southwest Kansas received about $11 million. Northeast Kansas received about $9 million. Southeast and East Central Kansas received just over $5 million each. North Central and Northwest Kansas received around $550,000 or less. The North Central and Northwest regions also requested the least in CERG funding.
To increase connectivity in unserved and underserved areas in Kansas in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kansas Department of Commerce (Commerce) and other stakeholders developed the Connectivity Emergency Response Grants program in 2020. The program received $50 million in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Commerce awarded about $48.5 million of that funding in connectivity grants to the internet service providers and Kansas communities that applied. 66 grants went to 39 entities across seven regions of Kansas. South Central Kansas received about $14 million. Southwest Kansas received about $11 million. Northeast Kansas received about $9 million. Southeast and East Central Kansas received just over $5 million each. North Central and Northwest Kansas received around $550,000 or less. The North Central and Northwest regions also requested the least in CERG funding.
Welcome to the rundown, your source for the latest news and updates from the Kansas legislative division of post audit, featuring LPA staff talking about recently released audit reports and discussing their main findings key takeaways and why it matters. I'm Mor Exline in September, 2022, legislative post audit released a limited scope performance audit, reviewing connectivity, emergency response grants for broadband development, specifically what entities received those grants and where they are located. I'm with Sam dads auditor at legislative post audit who conducted this audit. Welcome to the rundown Sam
Speaker 2:I'm. Lori. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Let's start here. This audit reviewed the connectivity emergency response grant program for broadband development. Can you give us some background on the program such as how it started, where funding came from and who could participate?
Speaker 2:Sure. So in 2020, the federal government allocated about$1 billion to Kansas in discretionary cares act funds, which the state distributed to counties and state agencies. So back in may of 2020, the governor established the office of recovery within the office of the governor. And also in may of 2020, the governor established the strengthening people and revitalizing Kansas spark task force. So back in July of 2020 spark allocated about 50 million of cares act funds to the connectivity emergency response grant program, uh, to address COVID 19 related connectivity needs. These grants provided internet service providers and Kansas cities, counties, non-profit organizations, and non-governmental entities with funds to improve internet connectivity, to underserved and unserved locations in Kansas. Uh, surge was also, uh, meant to address the needs of telework, telehealth, distance learning, and other remote business services related to COVID 19 effects. So the governor established the Kansas office of broadband development within commerce to help improve residents, access to quality affordable and reliable broadband, uh, this office distributed and oversaw search funding. And since its inception, uh, the broadband development office also administered or has administered other programs, uh, related to broadband development since 2020. Uh, but we didn't review any of these other programs as part of his audit. So commerce worked with the office of recovery and the spark task force to develop the framework for surge, uh, guidance from the federal government about how states could spend cares act funds was very broad. Uh, this means Kansas could tailor COVID 19 recovery programs like surge to address its unique needs and commerce and developed an application process and requirements to fit within sparks framework. Uh, some of the main requirements, uh, for surge applicants was that they would be an internet service provider or Kansas city county or non-profit organization or non-governmental entity. Uh, they had to have the ability to complete their proposed project by the initial cares act deadline of December 30th, 2020. Uh, they would need to provide a 20% match for the total project cost and, uh, would provide services to Kansas communities that had internet service with less than 25 megabits per second, download speeds and less than three megabits per second, upload speeds.
Speaker 1:As you mentioned, surge received$50 million in cares act funding. How much of that 50 million was dispersed to grantees. And what kinds of projects did those grants fund?
Speaker 2:So commerce awarded about 48.5 million in surge funding through 66 grants. Uh, these funds went to three types of broadband infrastructure projects, 37 or about 56% went to projects, proposing fiber to premise or fiber to the curb. Fiber to premise builds a fiber optic line from a central office or edge office to the boundary of a residence business or other premise and fiber to curb builds a fiber optic line from a central office or edge office to the curb or driveway of a location residence business, or other premise 22 grants about 33% went to projects proposing fixed or mobile wireless and fixed wireless is the type of internet service that uses broadcast towers to send and receive signals in the form of radio waves and seven grants, or about 11%, uh, went to hybrid projects, proposing a combination of fiber to premise fiber to curb or, uh, wireless. So individual grant awards also varied about 79% of surge awards were under a million dollars. Uh, the smallest surge award was$12,000 and the largest was about 6.2 million commerce officials also told us they spent about 280,000 for administration and contracting. This means the remaining 1.2 million in search funding was not distributed. And commerce officials demonstrated they returned unspent search funds and other unspent relief funds to the state coronavirus relief account figure one shows 66 applications were approved out of 82 south central Kansas received the most search funding, which was about 14 million, about 29% of all surge funds Southwest Kansas received about 11 million, uh, about 23% and Northeast Kansas received about 9 million or about 18%. Uh, these three regions accounted for, uh, 47 surge applications about 57% and 62% of all requested grant funds. The Southeast and east central regions received just over 5 million each and north central and, uh, Northwest regions of Kansas received about$550,000 or less. Uh, but these regions also requested the lease and search funding
Speaker 1:Who determined which projects received funding and what went into that process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so commerce officials told us that surge applications were digital and were accepted around August of 2020. Uh, these applications requested technical and non-technical information from the applicant about the proposed projects. So the technical information included things like service, location, maps, network architecture, and financial capacity to complete the project. Non-technical information included explanations about how the project addressed the levels of community need and COVID 19 impact benefits. And for evaluation, commerce officials explain that commerce staff evaluated the non-technical information on the applications. And there was a technical consulting firm who processed the technical information and to evaluate the applications commerce and its consultant created a scoring matrix applications could receive a maximum score of 150 points that was 105 for technical 45 for non-technical meaning the technical aspects of projects carried more weight than the non-technical aspects. And commerce officials told us they took other factors into considerations, such as the health needs of homebound patients, uh, when evaluating applications. So we reviewed a judgemental selection of 12 scores for four approved applications into denied applications. Uh, for each application we selected a high score and a low score to review from the scoring matrix, commerce evaluated one of the reviewed scores and the consultant evaluated the other. In most cases, our conclusions are not projectable to the surge application population because we've reviewed only a small judgemental selection. We also didn't re-score or reevaluate the information contained in the submitted applications. Uh, we only checked to see if a selection of the scores on each of the six scoring sheets made sense based on commerce is review process and 11 of those scores, we reviewed appeared reasonable based on Commerce's process. We thought one of the low scores could have warranted a higher score based on the information provided by the applicant. However, the effect was negligible because the projects still receive funding. So once the applications were scored, uh, commerce officials told us they sent applications, uh, that were approved by commerce and its contractor to an interagency review committee after scoring them members from commerce, representing economic development and legislative interests, uh, other state agencies, such as transportation, agriculture, and education, and the executive branch chief information technology officer composed, this committee grant recommendations were then sent to the office of recovery for review before final approval.
Speaker 1:So finally, you mentioned that most projects received funding, but did the audit learn anything about the projects that didn't receive surge funding?
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah. So commerce did deny a few applications, um, through its review process commerce denied, uh, 16 applications or about 20% of all surge applications. There were a few different reasons for these denials. Uh, the most common one, uh, there were seven denied because applicants requested funds for ineligible purposes, such as for equipment for private businesses. Commerce officials also explained that there were several processes in place to protect surge funds. For example, uh, commerce told us there was weekly monitoring of projects, uh, that were behind schedule and monthly reporting requirements for grantees. Uh, but due to the limited scope of this audit, we were not able to verify Commerce's claims
Speaker 1:Sam dads is an auditor at legislative post audit. He conducted a limited scope, performance audit, reviewing connectivity, emergency response grants for broadband development, specifically what entities received these grants and where they are located. Thanks for joining me, Sam.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me ma
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