Memphis School District Fears $5 Million Loss on Devices
The district said an administrative error created the reimbursement issue.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17, 2024 – A major school district in Tennessee fears it could be on the hook for more than $5 million without help from federal regulators.
State Broadband
Tennessee’s Shelby County School District received funding commitments during Window One of the Emergency Connectivity Fund to purchase 28,400 connected devices on behalf of its students and staff, amounting to nearly $10 million in total funds.
Of that $10 million, invoices for $4.76 million were submitted on time by the district for a portion of the devices.
According to the district, an administrative error occurred, leading to $5.4 million for the remaining devices being left without proper invoices by the November 2023 deadline.
Without submitting these invoices, the district was left with no ability to request reimbursement.
Following this unplanned financial mix up, the school district in March submitted a request for a waiver of the deadline with the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau.
A key argument made by the district was that any of the FCC’s rules may be waived if good cause is shown. In this case, they claimed that a waiver would serve the public interest.
School officials contend that a loss of more than $5 million in ECF support would negatively affect the district and its student body.
“[The Shelby County School District] would be greatly harmed by the loss of more than $5 million in ECF support for devices that it purchased,” said the district’s legal consultant Jennifer McKee in a Sept. 11 letter to the FCC.
The Shelby County School District is the second largest in Tennessee, serving about 110,000 students in the Memphis area.
The district has unused Window Three ECF support totaling $7.4 million, which it said could be used to offset the $5.4 million it is seeking in its waiver request.
